CLARENCE  HAWKES 


From  the  collection  of  the 


Prejinger 
v    Jjibrary 
t        P 


San  Francisco,  California 
2006 


NATURE'S 

CHILDREN 

LITTLE  STORIES  OF  WILD  LIFE 


BY 

CLARENCE  HAWKES 


AUTHOR  OF 

"The  Little  Foresters,"   "Stories  of   the  Good  Green  Wood,''' 

"The  Trail  to  the  Woods,"  "Tenants  of  the  Trees," 

"Shaggy  Coat,"  etc. 


EDUCATIONAL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

BOSTON 
NEW  YORK  CHICAGO  SAN  FRANCISCO 


H3 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 

BY 

EDUCATIONAL  PUBLISHING   COMPANY 
EDUCATION  DEFT. 


CONTENTS 

Bedtime  in  the  Forest  •         •       7 

Tiny  and  Bit          ....  13 

The  Frog  Folks  •     20 

Animals  Who  Live  in  Houses        ;  28 

The  Merry  Little  Woodchoppers      .  -35 
How  Little  Animals  and  Birds  are  Taught  Obedience    .        42 

The  Little  White  House  on  Bee  Street  .                          .     48 

The  Friendly  Trees       ...  55 

Bird  and  Animal  Doctors  •     64 

What  the  Wolf  Cubs  are  Taught  73 

How  to  Tell  the  Birds      .  •     80 

What  the  Little  Brook  Told  Me  .  91 

What  the  Little  Foxes  Must  Know  •     97 

Nest  Babies  .  -       lo6 

Some  Bird- Land  Romances      .  •  JI4 

Furred  and  Feathered  Fishermen  •       I24 

How  the  Birds  Help  the  Farmer       .  •  i32 
What  the  Little  Furred  and  Feathered  Folks  do  in  Winter       138 

Birds  and  Animals  that  Enjoy  Society  .                          .  145 
Stories  in  the  Snow 
Silver-King  the  Great  Salmon    . 

Winter  Visitors      .  •       l67 
The  Uses  of  Tails     . 

The  Long  Sleep •       l8z 


541254 


TO  MY  YOUNG  READERS 

The  author  has  sought  in  this  little  volume  to 
tell  in  the  simplest  manner,  something  of  the 
life  of  Nature's  children,  as  they  live  and  grow 
up  in  the  wild. 

So  it  will  be  seen  that  many  of  the  following 
chapters  deal  with  the  babes  of  the  forest. 
Through  these  pages  you  can  become  acquainted 
with  the  fledgling  in  the  nest,  the  kitfox  and 
the  baby  rabbit  in  the  burrow,  and  the  bear 
cub  and  the  wolf  whelp  in  their  lairs. 

The  author  has  sought  to  depict  faithfully 
how  the  children  of  the  woods  are  reared,  and 
how  by  instinct  and  training  they  acquire  such 
knowledge  as  is  necessary  for  their  kind. 

He  has  also  sought  to  describe  the  wonderful 
harmony  in  nature,  and  the  relation  of  animal, 
plant,  insect  and  bird  life  —  to  show  how  each 
helps  and  supports  the  other,  and  to  suggest  the 
beauty  and  wisdom  of  the  whole  plan  of  nature. 

So  you  will  find  in  this  book  stories  of  birds, 
animals,  plants,  insects,  all  depicting  the  marvels 
of  nature.  You  will  be  interested  to  learn  how 

5 


6  To  My  Young  Readers 

the  birds  and  squirrels  and  all  the  four-footed 
creatures  feed  and  take  care  of  themselves. 
How  they  protect  themselves  from  cold  in  the 
winter  and  escape  famine.  How  with  the 
coming  of  winter  many  of  them  migrate,  seeking 
warmer  climes,  while  others  den  up  and  sleep 
away  the  cold  months. 

In  the  perfect  plan  of  Nature  nothing  is  with- 
out its  use,  and  you  will  learn  in  these  pages 
what  an  important  part  many  seemingly  useless 
little  creatures  play. 

The  facts  about  wild  life  given  in  this  volume 
merely  outline  the  wonderful  story  of  nature. 

So,  you  will  see  that  this  small  book  is  only  a 
primer  of  natural  history,  from  which  you  may 
learn  the  alphabet,  but  if  it  encourages  you  to  read 
other  nature  books  and  to  go  to  the  fields  and 
woods  for  yourselves,  it  will  have  served  its  pur- 
pose. 

Dedicated  to  my  little  readers,  with  the  hope 
that  these  simple  stories  of  wild  life  may  create 
a  desire  for  more  nature  books,  so  that  finally 
they  will  learn  to  know  the  life  of  field  and 
forest  for  themselves. 


NATURE'S   CHILDREN 


BEDTIME   IN   THE   FOREST 

When  you  children  are  tucked  in  your  beds 
and  made  comfortable  for  the  night,  do  you  not 
often  wonder  what  the  birds  and  all  the  little 
four-footed  creatures  do  when  it  grows  dark  ? 

When  the  sun  hangs  low  on  the  western  hills 
and  the  golden  pencils  of  light  fall  aslant  through 
the  aisles  of  the  forest  there  is  great  activity 
among  all  the  little  furred  and  feathered  folks. 
You  will  see  the  old  robins  flying  to  and  from 
the  nest  carrying  angle  worms  to  the  nestlings. 
This  is  what  they  have  been  doing  nearly  all 
day  long,  for  the  young  robins  are  very  greedy  and 
it  usually  takes  the  greater  part  of  their  parents' 
time  to  feed  them.  All  the  other  bird  parents 
who  depend  upon  worms  and  grubs  for  food  are 
feeding  the  little  ones  their  supper. 


8  Nature's  Children 

Mother  partridge  is  stepping  daintily  from 
place  to  place,  closely  followed  by  her  large  family 
of  ten  or  a  dozen  chicks.  If  the  chicks  are  very 
small  they  will  be  seen  to  be  picking  at  the 
leaves  and  mold,  but  you  cannot  see  what  they 
are  eating.  The  chick  partridges  live  upon 
plant  lice  and  small  bugs  that  are  so  tiny  that 
the  human  eye  can  hardly  see  them.  If  they  are 
two  or  three  months  old  they  will  feed  upon 
larger  bugs  and  grubs  and  worms. 

After  the  little  birds  have  had  their  supper 
there  will  be  a  few  minutes  of  glorious  singing 
when  all  the  forest  will  overflow  with  song. 
This  song  comes  from  the  grateful  hearts  of  the 
birds  who  are  unconsciously  praising  God  for 
his  goodness. 

As  the  sun  sinks  behind  the  hills  the  song 
grows  fainter  and  fainter,  until  at  last  only  a 
few  sleepy  twitters  are  heard,  and  finally  it  will 
all  die  away. 

There  is  one  queer  little  bird,  though,  who 
occasionally  twitters  away  when  he  happens  to 
wake,  and  that  is  the  chipping  sparrow,  but 
most  of  the  birds  sleep  quietly,  only  uttering 


Nature's  Children  9 

drowsy  peeps  in  their  sleep  when  they  dream 
of  a  great  fat  worm,  or  something  else  excit- 
ing. 

To  the  two  little  horned  owls  who  live  in  a 
large  nest  in  the  top  of  at  all  tree,  the  night  time 
is  a  very  pleasant  season.  To  all  the  owl  family, 
the  night  is  as  day. 

The  bright  light  of  the  daytime  blinds  the  owl, 
but  when  the  shadows  begin  to  creep  through  the 
woods,  he  is  very  glad,  for  he  knows  that  his 
hour  has  come.  All  day  long  he  has  been  sitting 
in  the  tree-top  winking  and  blinking,  but  now  he 
will  go  forth  to  hunt. 

The  great  horned  owl,  who  is  one  of  the  largest 
of  the  family,  and  is  the  father  of  the  two  nest- 
lings in  the  treetop,  will  take  a  commanding 
position  upon  the  top  of  an  old  stub  tree  where 
he  can  see  all  that  is  going  on,  and  then  he  will 
send  forth  his  hunting  cry:  "Whoo,  whoo, 
whoo,  oo-whoo-whoo-oo-oo. "  Then  when  the 
sound  has  died  away  he  will  listen.  There  is 
no  ear  among  the  bird  folk  that  is  keener  than 
his.  If  a  squirrel  rustles  the  grass  upon  the 
ground  or  a  bird  stirs  in  the  tree-top,  he  is  upon 


io  Nature's  Children 

it.  The  unfortunate  victim  is  seized  in  strong 
sharp  claws  and  borne  away  to  the  nest,  where 
the  hungry  little  owls  will  devour  it. 

The  object  of  the  owl  in  giving  his  hunting 
cry  is  to  scare  his  prey  and  cause  it  to  move  and 
betray  its  hiding  place. 

Besides  not  being  able  to  see  well  by  day, 
the  owl  cannot  turn  his  eye  from  side  to  side  as 
other  creatures  can,  but  has  to  turn  his  head. 
So  he  has  been  given  a  neck  that  is  very  pliable, 
and  he  can  turn  his  head  in  any  direction  without 
stirring  from  his  perch. 

When  the  moonlight  comes  the  little  baby 
rabbits  are  also  glad,  for  now  they  know  that 
their  mother  will  lead  them  forth,  that  they  may 
browse  on  tender  shoots  and  twigs.  The  moon- 
light nights  are  the  rabbits'  play  time  and  in  the 
winter  they  may  be  seen  playing  tag  with  as  much 
enjoyment  as  children. 

The  little  foxes  are  also  glad  when  the  night 
comes.  It  is  not  their  bed-time,  but  the  hour 
when  they  go  with  their  mother  to  the  meadow 
to  catch  mice.  They  do  their  sleeping  in  the 
day-time  and  in  the  night  when  the  mice  are 


Nature's  Children  n 

playing  in  their  runways  in  the  grass,  they  go 
forth  to  hunt. 

The  little  dapple  fawn  will  also  go  forth  in  the 
moonlight  with  its  mother,  for  the  deer  family 
sleep  in  the  day-time,  and  feed  by  moonlight 
in  the  evening  and  very  early  morning. 

The  woodchuck  lives  more  like  folks,  and  he 
sleeps  in  the  night,  but  he  is  a  very  early  riser. 
When  the  very  first  faint  streak  of  daylight 
shows  in  the  east,  he  goes  forth  to  sample  the 
farmer's  beans.  If  the  young  woodchucks  are 
old  enough  they  will  go  too. 

The  woodpecker  builds  his  nest  in  a  peculiar 
manner.  He  pecks  a  hole  in  the  tree  and  then 
runs  it  downward  for  several  inches,  and  there 
he  sleeps  at  the  bottom  of  the  hole.  It  is  hard 
for  the  woodpecker  to  tell  when  the  first  faint 
streak  of  daylight  appears  in  the  east,  as  he  is  at 
the  bottom  of  a  dark  hole,  so  he  usually  makes 
his  nest  on  the  east  side  of  the  tree,  so  that  the 
first  rays  of  the  sun  will  fall  into  his  hole  and 
awaken  him.  If  the  hole  was  on  the  west  side 
of  the  tree  this  would  not  happen. 

So  you  see  the  birds  and  the  squirrels;  and  the 


12  Nature's  Children 

other  little  four-footed  creatures  who  live  upon 
the  ground,  have  their  time  for  coming  and  going; 
their  breakfast  time  and  their  supper  time.  Now 
if  you  know  just  when  their  breakfast  time  is, 
and  where  they  are  likely  to  feed,  you  may  watch 
them  at  their  morning  meal. 

As  a  rule,  the  furred  and  feathered  folks  awake 
much  earlier  and  go  to  sleep  much  earlier  than 
man.  Man  is  really  the  sluggard  and  sleepy- 
head of  all  God's  creatures. 


II 

TINY  AND  BIT 

Tiny  and  Bit  were  a  pair  of  ruby-throated 
humming  birds  that  builded  their  nest  in  a  grape- 
vine close  to  my  bedroom  window,  when  I  was  a 
small  boy.  Although  there  are  about  four 
hundred  varieties  of  hummers  known  to  the 
naturalists,  yet  the  ruby-throated  is  the  only  one 
ever  seen  in  these  parts. 

I  gave  the  birds  these  names  because  they  were 
so  very  small.  Tiny  was  the  male,  with  his 
flaming  ruby  throat  and  his  wonderful  green 
back  and  sides,  but  underside  he  was  not  quite 
so  brilliant,  although  the  green  extended  well 
down.  In  some  lights  his  wonderrful  ruby 
necktie  would  change  to  orange  or  yellow,  just 
like  changeable  silk. 

Bit  was  not  quite  so  large  as  Tiny  and. she  had 
no  ruby  breast.  Her  breast  was  gray  and  her 

whole  suit  was  duller  than  her  mate's. 

13 


14  Nature's  Children 

The  humming  bird  usually  builds  its  nest  high 
up  in  a  tall  tree,  placing  it  upon  some  horizontal 
limb,  and  finally  covering  it  with  bits  of  moss 
and  lichens,  so  that  it  looks  just  like  a  knot  in  the 
limb,  or  a  fungus  growth.  This  is  their  cunning 
way  of  hiding  the  nest. 

The  nest  near  my  window  was  placed  in  a 
crotch  of  the  vine  and  sheltered  by  a  very  large 
grape  leaf.  It  was  built  of  bits  of  bark  and 
woody  fiber,  and  lined  with  particles  of  frond  and 
very  fine  fuzz  stripped  from  plants.  It  was 
such  a  mite  of  a  nest  that  it  seemed  too  small 
for  even  Mrs.  Hummer. 

Once,  while  Mrs.  Hummer  was  sitting  upon 
her  eggs,  another  ruby-throat  came  by  and  began 
prodding  away  at  the  flowers  in  the  piazza  box 
upon  the  porch. 

Like  a  flash  Tiny  went  after  him  and  they 
darted  to  and  fro  spearing  at  each  other  with 
their  long,  sharp  bills  so  rapidly  that  the  eye 
could  hardly  follow  them. 

Finally  the  intruder  was  driven  away  and  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Rubythroat  had  the  premises  entirely  to 
themselves  as  far  as  humming-birds  were  con- 


THE  RUBY-THROATED  HUMMING-BIRD 


1 6  Nature's  Children 

cerned  and  the  other  birds  they  didn't  seem  to 
mind. 

I  have  often  heard  people  ask  the  foolish  ques- 
tion, "Do  humming-birds  ever  alight?"  Of 
course  they  alight.  A  hummer  is  not  a  machine 
and  cannot  keep  on  the  wing  forever.  Little  Bit 
often  alighted  on  a  dead  grapevine  twig  and 
preened  her  feathers  in  the  most  dainty  manner. 

I  think  there  were  but  two  eggs,  as  two  was 
the  number  of  young  hummers  that  we  afterwards 
saw  drinking  from  the  sweet  at  the  heart  of  the 
honeysuckle  blossoms. 

Mr.  Hummer  was  very  jealous  about  his  nest, 
and  if  I  made  the  slightest  noise  at  the  window 
he  would  dart  at  the  glass  angrily. 

The  little  hummers  were  fed  by  Tiny  on  honey 
and  plant  lice  until  they  were  ready  to  leave  the 
nest  and  gather  honey  for  themselves. 

They  were  often  to  be  seen  perching  upon  a 
dead  sprig  of  grapevine  with  Mrs.  Hummer 
before  they  fully  learned  to  fly. 

I  do  not  think  they  could  have  been  over  a  week 
old  when  they  left  the  nest.  They  were  so  small 
that  the  first  time  I  saw  them  gathering  honey 


Nature's  Children  17 

for  themselves,  I    thought    them  large  bumble 
bees. 

A  few  days  later  they  would  come  freely  to  the 
porch  with  the  two  old  birds  and  fly  about  the 
honeysuckle.  Occasionally  they  would  make 
funny  excited  little  squeaks,  but  I  did  not  hear 
the  old  birds  make  any  sound  except  that  made 
by  the  wonderful  lightning-like  wings. 

The  hummer  is  the  most  wonderful  flyer  that 
I  know  of.  He  is  such  a  mite  of  a  bird  that  you 
would  not  expect  him  to  fly  rapidly.  Most  of 
our  other  small  birds  fly  rather  slowly,  but  not 
so  the  hummer. 

I  would  be  sitting  upon  the  piazza  watching 
Tiny  with  all  my  eyes  and  suddenly  he  would  be 
gone,  but  where  ?  I  had  kept  my  eyes  upon  him 
all  the  time,  but  his  flight  had  been  quicker  than 
my  eyesight.  Presently  I  would  hear  his  wings 
buzzing  away  in  a  different  part  of  the  lawn,  and 
looking  in  the  direction  from  which  the  sound 
came,  I  would  see  this  tiny  creature  looking  as 
though  he  was  hung  up  in  the  air  before  a  morn- 
ing glory  trumpet.  His  body  was  motionless, 
but  his  wings  were  beating  many  thousands  of 
times  a  minute. 


1 8  Nature's  Children 

One  night,  when  I  came  home  from  school, 
my  grandmother  met  me  at  the  door  and  told  me 
to  hurry  in  because  she  had  something  to  show 
me.  I  held  out  my  hand  to  take  what  she  was 
holding  in  hers,  and  to  my  great  astonishment 
she  laid  the  limp  body  of  Tiny,  my  wonderful 
ruby-throated  hummer,  in  my  hand. 

"O  Grandmother!"  I  sobbed  in  uncontrol- 
lable grief,  "he's  dead!" 

"No,  I  am  not  sure  that  he  is  dead,  child," 
replied  the  old  lady.  "He  flew  into  the  house 
and  in  trying  to  get  out,  flew  against  the  window 
and  was  stunned." 

How  fragile  and  how  wonderfully  fashioned 
he  was!  His  ruby  throat  gleamed  in  the  sun- 
light like  a  genuine  ruby  and  his  green  back 
glinted  and  shone  like  watered  silk. 

"What  a  wonderful  little  creature  he  is,"  I 
thought,  as  I  held  the  slight  form  in  my  hand. 
What  a  marvel  it  was  that  this  tiny  thing  had 
flown  two  or  three  tho'usand  miles  from  the 
tropics,  that  he  might  make  our  flower  gardens 
gay  with  his  wonderful  plumage. 

There  was  a  very  slight  flutter  in  my  hand, 


Nature's  Children  19 

so  slight  that  I  hardly  noticed  it,  but  I  looked 
sharply  at  Tiny  to  see  if  there  were  any  signs  of 
his  coming  to.  Zip!  went  something  by  my  ear, 
and  my  hand  was  empty. 

Grandmother  laughed  at  my  wide-open  staring 
eyes  and  look  of  astonishment.  "He  went  out 
of  the  door,"  she  said.  "I  guess  he  is  as  good 
as  new,  for  there  he  is  in  the  yard  sampling  a 
lily." 

Sure  enough!  my  wonderful  hummer  was  back 
at  his  old  tricks  again  and  I  was  glad.  No  matter 
how  sweet  the  nectar  of  the  flowers  might  be, 
it  was  none  too  good  for  him  —  my  jewel  bird. 

They  stayed  with  us  until  early  in  October, 
and  then  I  suppose  they  flew  away  to  the  sunny 
south,  for  I  did  not  see  them  again  that  year, 
but  I  climbed  out  on  the  piazza  roof  and  got  the 
empty  nest,  that  I  might  have  something  to 
remember  them  by. 


Ill 

THE  FROG  FOLKS 

The  toads  and  the  frogs  are  first  cousins,  as 
you  might  guess  from  their  looks  and  habits  of 
life.  They  both  belong  to  the  same  great  family 
of  batrachians,  of  which  there  are  nine  divi- 
sions and  four  hundred  and  ninety  different 
individuals. 

Perhaps  the  most  peculiar  thing  about  the 
frog  is,  that  he  can  breathe  either  in  the  air  as 
we  do,  or  under  the  water,  as  a  fish  does.  This 
is  because  he  has  both  lungs  and  gills,  so  he  is 
better  off  than  most  other  creatures  in  that 
particular. 

The  frog's  eggs  are  laid  early  in  the  spring  in 
puddles  and  sluggish  water,  and  left  to  hatch 
when  the  water  shall  get  warm  enough,  just  as  the 
fishes'  eggs  are  hatched.  When  the  egg  is  first 
hatched,  and  for  a  week  or  two  after,  the  frog 
looks  more  as  though  he  were  intended  for  a 


20 


22  Nature's  Children 

fish  than  a  frog.  He  is  fish  shaped  and  swims 
by  wriggling  his  tail. 

Then  he  is  called  a  pollywog,  or  tadpole,  and 
I  suppose  many  of  you  children  have  seen  him, 
but  when  he  is  from  a  week  to  two  weeks  old, 
the  legs  begin  to  appear,  the  fore  legs  first,  and 
then  the  hind  ones,  and  finally  he  is  no  longer 
a  pollywog,  but  a  full-fledged  frog. 

Then  he  can  jump,  swim  and  catch  flies,  and 
go  upon  the  land  if  he  wants  to,  and  this  was 
something  that  he  could  not  do  when  he  was  a 
pollywog. 

The  very  smallest  of  all  the  frogs  is  called  the 
piping  frog.  He  is  hatched  from  an  egg  in  the 
puddles  just  like  his  fellows,  but  he  finally  comes 
on  shore  and  lives  in  a  tree,  and  then  he  is  the 
tree  frog.  You  will  often  hear  his  shrill  trilling 
song  in  the  early  evening. 

This  piping  frog  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
of  all  the  frog  family.  Besides  living  in  a  tree, 
he  can  take  off  his  skin  and  eat  it  whenever  he 
wants  to,  and  this  is  another  queer  thing  for  a 
frog  to  do.  He  will  begin  by  pulling  the  skin 
on  his  head  off  and  by  crowding  it  into  his  mouth, 


Nature's  Children  23 

then  he  keeps  pulling  more  and  more,  just  as  a 
boy  would  upon  a  sweater,  and  all  the  time  he  is 
crowding  the  skin  down  his  throat  with  his  long, 
strong  tongue.  In  three  minutes'  time  he  will 
have  himself  all  skinned  and  his  suit  of  clothes 
eaten.  But  there  is  another  skin  under  this, 
and  that  was  why  he  tore  off  the  first.  Toads 
also  shed  their  skins  and  eat  them,  but  they  do 
not  do  it  as  often  as  the  little  piping  frog  does. 

In  the  very  early  spring,  before  the  ice  is  quite 
gone  in  the  brook,  this  little  frog  will  be  lying  on 
the  bottom  of  the  stream.  Frogs  usually  dive 
down  deep  in  the  mud  in  winter  and  freeze  up. 
I  have  found  frogs  frozen  stiff,  and  brought  them 
home  and  thawed  them  out,  so  that  they  would 
be  hopping  about  in  a  few  minutes. 

Presently  this  little  frog  feels  in  his  heart  that 
it  is  spring.  He  has  not  seen  the  outer  world, 
and  it  is  very  dark  down  at  the  bottom  of  the 
stream  where  he  is,  but  he  feels  in  some  way 
that  spring  is  near,  so  he  comes  to  the  surface 
and  cries  with  all  his  might  in  a  shrill,  clear 
voice,  "Spring,  spring,  spring!" 

When  the  farmer  who  is  making  maple  sugar  at 


24  Nature's  Children 

this  time  hears  this  tiny  frog  crying  "Spring," 
he  says : 

"Well,  well,  there  are  the  frogs.  No  more 
sugar-making  for  this  year. " 

So  you  see  this  little  piping  frog  is  a  wonderful 
prophet  and  can  tell  away  down  in  the  damp 
and  mould  that  spring  is  coming. 

Have  you  not  often  wondered  when  you  saw 
a  frog  or  a  toad  catching  flies,  how  he  could  run 
his  tongue  out  so  far,  and  how  he  could  do  it  so 
quickly  ?  This  is  the  way  it  is  done.  The  tongues 
of  both  the  frogs  and  the  toads  are  fastened  on 
near  the  front  of  the  mouth,  and  the  end  that 
is  down  the  throat  is  free,  so  when  a  frog  wants  to 
stick  out  his  tongue,  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  flick 
it  out,  and  there  it  is,  full  length. 

There  is  another  funny  thing  about  the  frog's 
tongue  which  helps  him  in  catching  flies.  It 
is  covered  with  a  sticky  substance,  so  that  when 
it  touches  the  fly,  there  he  sticks,  and  Mr.  Frog 
can  eat  him  at  his  leisure. 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  have  a  family  of  toads 
live  under  one's  front  door  step.  They  are  very 
social  fellows,  and  their  antics  are  so  funny  that 


Nature's  Children  25 

it  is  a  pleasure  to  watch  them.  Children  should 
never  injure  or  frighten  toads,  as  they  are  very 
useful  as  well  as  interesting. 

All  day  long  a  toad  will  lie  half  covered  with 
sand  or  dirt,  and  as  his  coat  is  dust  color  you  may 
look  right  at  him  and  not  see  him,  but  as  soon  as 
the  sun  sets,  he  comes  forth  to  get  his  supper  of 
flies  and  bugs. 

Toads  should  always  be  encouraged  to  live  in 
the  garden,  for  they  do  a  great  deal  of  good  there. 
Almost  any  farmer  will  tell  you  that  he  would 
rather  have  a  toad  to  pick  off  the  bugs  and  worms 
that  destroy  his  plants,  than  a  boy. 

The  toad  is  also  a  musician  and  this  you 
probably  did  not  know. 

When  the  spring  song  of  the  frogs  down  in  the 
swamp  is  at  its  height  and  all  are  piping  away 
with  might  and  main,  you  will  hear  one  song, 
loud  and  shrill,  which  trembles  like  a  whistle 
with  a  pea  in  it. 

This  is  the  loudest  and  most  persistent  of  all 
the  frog's  songs,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
that  of  the  piping  frog.  This  noisy  musician  is 
none  other  than  our  friend,  Mr.  Hop  Toad, 


26  Nature's  Children 

If  you  will  discover  him  in  the  act,  you  will  see 
that  he  puffs  out  his  throat  until  it  looks  as  though 
it  would  burst,  then  he  sends  forth  his  shrill, 
tremulous  song. 

Snakes  are  the  enemies  of  both  the  frogs  and 
the  toads.  I  once  rescued  a  poor  frog  that  a 
hungry  snake  had  partly  swallowed.  The  frog's 
head  still  showed,  so  I  took  Mr.  Snake  by  the  tail 
and  shook  him  until  the  poor  frog  came  out, 
when  he  jumped  away  in  a  lively  manner.  The 
snake  did  not  like  to  have  his  breakfast  taken 
from  him  in  that  way,  and  he  hissed  and 
wriggled. 

Hawks  and  owls  also  catch  frogs,  but  their 
worst  enemy  is  the  great  American  blue  heron, 
a  long  legged  bird  who  looks  as  though  he  was 
on  stilts.  You  will  see  this  queer  bird  wading 
cautiously  in  the  stream.  Suddenly  his  long  neck 
will  shoot  out,  and  he  will  spear  a  frpg  with  his 
sharp  bill.  When  the  frog  is  dead  he  will  hide 
him  under  a  stone  and  go  after  more  frogs. 
When  he  has  gotten  half  a  dozen,  he  will  gather 
them  all  up  in  his  bill  and  fly  away  with  them. 
This  tells  you  that  there  is  a  nest  of  young  heron 


Nature's  Children  27 

away  back  in  the  woods  somewhere,  and  that  the 
old  heron  is  taking  them  their  supper  of  frogs. 
Some  day  the  old  heron  will  bring  his  whole 
family  down  to  the  edge  of  the  pond  to  catch 
frogs.  Then  the  frogs  must  lie  low,  and  keep 
very  still,  or  it  will  fare  hard  with  them. 

The  mink,  who  is  a  cruel,  bloodthirsty  fellow 
like  the  weasel,  kills  many  frogs,  and  often  more 
than  he  cares  to  eat. 

There  is  also  another  enemy  that  the  frog  has 
sometimes  to  meet,  and  that  is  the  small  boy 
with  a  stone,  but  children  are  gradually  learning 
better  than  to  stone  their  little  helpless  friends, 
the  frogs  and  the  toads. 


ANIMALS   WHO   LIVE   IN  HOUSES 

IV 

It  seems  wonderful  to  think  that  an  animal 
should  be  so  clever  that  he  would  build  himself 
a  house  to  protect  him  from  the  storm  and  the 
cold,  just  as  does  the  house  of  man.  Yet  two 
animals  that  I  know  of  have  been  bright  enough 
to  do  this. 

The  most  important  of  these  house-builders 
is  the  beaver,  and  the  other  is  his  cousin,  the 
muskrat,  who  is  sometimes  called  the  little 
beaver. 

The  beaver  is  also  clever  in  other  ways  and 
altogether  he  is  the  most  interesting  animal  for 
you  to  study  that  I  know  of.  When  the  beaver 
wants  to  build  himself  a  house,  he  first  considers 
how  he  shall  protect  it  when  it  is  built,  for  you 
must  remember  that  the  beaver's  house  is  only  a 
mud  hut,  and  his  many  enemies  could  break  into  it 

if  he  did  not  take  great  precaution  against  them. 
28 


BEAVERS  AT  WORK 


30  Nature's  Children 

As  the  beaver  is  a  good  swimmer  himself,  and 
many  of  his  enemies  are  not,  he  concludes  that 
it  will  be  well  to  place  his  house  where  it  shall  be 
surrounded  by  water.  So  he  sets  to  work  and 
builds  a  dam,  that  he  may  have  just  the  kind  of 
a  lake  he  wants. 

The  building  of  a  dam  seems  even  more 
wonderful  than  it  does  to  build  a  house,  but  the 
beavers  have  been  dam-builders  for  centuries, 
and  they  understand  it  almost  as  well  as  men 
who  have  been  trained  to  build  dams. 

Here  is  one  way  that  the  beaver  builds  his  dam. 
He  finds  a  spot  where  the  stream  has  high,  nar- 
row banks,  and  then  fells  two  trees  across  it. 
But  how  does  he  fell  the  trees  ?  you  may  ask. 
He  has  no  axe  and  he  could  not  use  one  if  he 
had. 

No,  the  beaver  does  not  use  an  axe  in  felling 
trees,  but  with  his  sharp,  shovel-shaped  teeth  he 
gnaws  them  down.  This  seems  almost  too  much 
to  believe,  but  it  is  true.  The  beaver  stands  upon 
his  hind  legs  and  gnaws  a  girdle  about  the  tree, 
then  he  gnaws  another  about  three  inches  above 
the  first.  He  then  pulls  out  the  chip  between 


Nature's  Children  31 

and  the  first  cut  is  made.  He  keeps  on  repeating 
this  act  until  the  tree  falls.  When  the  beaver 
has  felled  his  two  trees  across  the  stream  he 
thrusts  stakes  in  the  mud  in  front  of  them  and 
then  fills  it  in  with  brush.  Next  come  the  sods 
and  the  mud,  and  finally  the  whole  is  so  plastered 
over  that  it  holds  water,  and  the  beaver's  dam 
soon  fills,  and  he  has  a  fine  woodland  lake. 

Another  way  that  he  builds  dams,  is  to  cut 
the  logs  up  into  short  pieces  and  build  a  cobwork 
dam,  just  as  a  child  would  build  up  blocks.  He 
can  also  build  a  dam  by  weighting  down  brush 
with  stone,  and  then  piling  on  sods  and  dirt. 

When  the  dam  has  over-flowed  the  country  and 
made  a  good-sized  lake,  the  beaver  thinks  about 
his  house.  This  is  usually  located  on  an  island 
in  the  middle  of  the  lake,  where  the  beaver's 
enemies  cannot  get  at  him. 

For  his  house  the  beaver  builds  a  circular 
wall,  about  eight  feet  in  diameter,  just  as  you 
would  build  a  snow  fort.  When  it  gets  up  high 
enough  so  that  the  mud  would  fall  over,  if  not 
supported,  he  puts  in  rafters,  just  as  man  does. 
This  is  done  by  thrusting  sticks  in  the  mud  wall, 


32  Nature's  Children 

and  bending  their  tops  all  together,  where  the 
beaver's  chimney  for  his  house  is  to  be. 

He  has  to  use  great  caution  in  building  the  roof 
of  his  mud  house,  for  the  mud  keeps  falling 
through  if  he  is  not  careful.  At  the  very  top  of 
the  house  he  leaves  a  little  opening,  which  is  his 
chimney.  This  is  done  so  the  bad  air  can  pass 
out  in  the  winter  time,  when  the  beaver  stays  all 
day  in  his  house. 

During  the  last  of  the  beaver's  house  building 
it  is  freezing  every  night,  and  that  helps  him, 
for  the  mud  freezes  as  fast  as  he  puts  it  on,  so 
that  it  will  stay  in  place. 

From  the  middle  of  the  floor  inside  the  house 
is  a  hole  running  down  into  the  ground,  and 
finally  out  into  the  lake.  This  is  the  beaver's 
front  door.  No  one  can  enter  his  house  except 
by  this  door,  so  he  is  well  protected  from  all 
his  enemies  who  do  not  swim. 

When  the  house  is  finished  it  is  quite  late  in 
the  autumn,  so  he  thinks  of  laying  in  his  winter 
supply  of  food. 

The  beaver's  principal  food  is  bark,  so  he  goes 
up  stream,  and  cuts  many  small  trees.  These 


Nature's  Children  33 

he  cuts  into  sticks  about  three  feet  long  and  then 
floats  them  down  to  the  dam,  where  he  secures 
them  under  water.  This  he  does  by  thrusting 
them  under  roots  and  stones.  He  also  piles  up 
a  lot  of  this  wood  against  the  dam,  and  the  top 
sticks  will  keep  the  under  ones  down. 

At  just  the  right  time  the  beaver  finishes  his 
wood  cutting,  and  then  there  comes  a  great 
freeze,  and  the  beavers  are  locked  under  the  ice 
for  all  winter.  Now,  do  you  not  see  what  a  bad 
plight  he  would  have  been  in  if  he  had  not  laid 
in  a  store  of  bark  to  last  him  through  the  winter  ? 

Now  he  will  sleep  in  his  warm  house  when  the 
wind  howls  outside,  and  when  he  is  hungry 
he  will  swim  out  under  the  ice  and  get  a  stick 
from  his  woodpile.  He  will  take  the  stick  into 
his  house  and  peel  off  the  bark  and  eat  it  at 
leisure. 

There  are  usually  several  beavers  living  in  one 
house,  and  their  breath  keeps  the  house  quite 
warm  and  comfortable. 

The  cold  weather  that  froze  the  ice  on  the  lake 
and  locked  them  in  has  also  frozen  the  mud  of 
which  the  beaver's  house  is  made.  So  now  it 


34  Nature's  Children 

is  as  hard  as  stone,  and  a  man  could  hardly 
break  into  it  with  an  axe. 

The  wolverine,  who  is  a  mean,  sneaking  wolf, 
may  come  prowling  about  the  beaver's  house, 
but  he  cannot  break  in  now  it  is  frozen  up. 
The  wildcat  and  the  lynx  may  also  visit  the  pond 
in  hopes  of  getting  beaver  meat,  but  they  will  go 
away  unfed,  for  they  cannot  break  into  the 
strong  house. 

So  while  the  winds  howl  and  the  cold  freezes, 
the  beaver  lies  snug  and  warm  in  his  house,  well 
protected  from  all  his  enemies. 

And  all  this  because  he  thought  to  build  him 
a  house,  and  surround  it  with  a  broad  lake  to 
protect  him  from  his  foes. 


V 

THE  MERRY  LITTLE  WOODCHOPPERS 

In  this  chapter  I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  the 
woodpecker  family,  whom  I  call  the  merry  little 
woodchoppers. 

There  are  three  very  sure  ways  of  telling  a 
woodpecker,  so  that  almost  any  boy  or  girl  can 
learn  to  tell  them.  First,  if  you  see  a  bird  with 
a  red  patch  upon  his  head  or  the  back  of  the 
neck,  it  is  a  woodpecker.  Secondly,  if  the  bird  is 
drumming  upon  a  dead  limb  of  a  tree  with  his 
beak,  making  a  great  noise,  that  is  another  sign. 
Lastly,  if  the  bird  happens  to  be  flying,  and  you 
notice  that  he  goes  with  a  galloping  up-and-down 
motion,  it  is  probably  a  woodpecker.  There 
is  but  one  other  bird  that  flies  like  this,  and  that 
is  a  little  yellow  bird,  which  you  could  not  mistake 
for  a  woodpecker. 

Of  the   smaller  woodpeckers  there   are   four 

common    kinds.     The    red-headed,    the    hairy, 

35 


36  Nature's  Children 

the  downy,  and  the  yellow-bellied  sapsucker. 
Mrs.  Redhead  has  a  bright  red  head  as  well  as 
Mr.  Redhead,  but  Mrs.  Hairy  and  Mrs.  Downy 
do  not  have  the  red  stripe  upon  the  neck,  so  if 
you  see  a  woodpecker  without  red  upon  its  head 
or  neck,  it  is  either  Mrs.  Hairy  or  Mrs.  Downy. 
If  it  is  a  woodpecker  about  seven  or  eight  inches 
in  length  or  of  about  the  size  of  the  cedar  wax- 
wing,  it  is  Mrs.  Hairy,  but  if  it  is  only  about 
six  inches  long,  or  about  the  size  of  a  chickadee, 
it  is  Mrs.  Downy,  who  is  the  smallest  of  all  the 
woodpecker  family. 

All  of  these  woodpeckers,  with  the  exception 
of  the  yellow-belly,  do  a  great  deal  of  good,  for 
they  go  up  and  down  trees  in  Spring,  Summer, 
Autumn,  and  Winter,  looking  for  destructive 
borers  and  flies  that  injure  the  trees.  When  they 
hear  a  borer  under  the  bark,  with  their  strong 
bills  they  soon  bring  him  forth  and  eat  him. 
But  the  yellow-belly  is  a  harmful  bird,  although 
he  is  very  beautifully  marked.  As  you  will  guess 
from  his  name,  he  is  fond  of  sap,  and  this  will 
often  lead  him  to  make  so  many  little  sap  wells 
in  a  tree  as  to  kill  it.  He  also  loves  to  strip  off 


THE  DOWNY  WOODPECKER 


38  Nature's  Children 

the  outer  bark  from  fruit  trees  and  eat  the  tender 
inside  bark. 

In  the  early  spring,  when  the  sugar-maker 
goes  forth  to  set  the  sugar  camp,  yellow-belly  is 
on  hand  for  his  share  of  the  sweet  plunder. 

He  will  pick  out  a  maple  tree  that  he  knows 
contains  very  sweet  sap  and  then  he  will  go  up 
and  down  upon  it  boring  sap  wells  in  the  bark. 
Sometimes  he  will  bore  as  many  as  fifty  in  a 
single  tree.  Then,  if  the  sap  is  running  freely, 
he  will  go  up  and  down  all  day  long  drinking 
sap. 

All  the  members  of  the  woodpecker  family 
nest  in  a  hole  in  a  tree,  which  they  chisel  out  with 
their  own  sharp  beaks.  You  will  often  see  a 
woodpecker  clinging  to  the  bark  of  a  tree  with  his 
claws,  with  his  broad  tail  outspread  against  the 
tree  for  purchase,  while,  with  his  sharp  beak, 
he  strikes  so  rapidly  that  you  cannot  see  the 
motion  of  his  head.  Down  come  the  tiny  chips 
in  a  shower,  and  you  know  that  the  woodpeckers 
are  at  work  upon  their  nest. 

When  they  have  bored  in  some  two  or  three 
inches,  they  run  the  hole  down  a  little  way,  and 


Nature's  Children  39 

there  at  the  bottom  is  the  nest,  where  the  eggs 
are  laid. 

Some  observers  say  that  the  woodpecker 
always  builds  his  nest  upon  the  east  side  of  the 
tree,  so  that  the  sun  will  shine  into  it-  in  the 
morning  and  awaken  him,  but  I  am  not  sure 
whether  that  is  so  or  not. 

The  hairy  and  the  downy  woodpeckers  stay  with 
us  all  winter  long  and  it  is  very  pleasant  to  hear 
their  merry  rat-a-tat-tat  on  a  cold  win'ter  morning. 

For  their  winter  quarters,  the  male  woodpeck- 
ers drill  a  deep  hole  in  the  under  side  of  a  limb, 
and  then  run  it  down  into  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
and  there  at  the  bottom  they  sleep  quite  snugly 
in  the  coldest  weather.  But  poor  Mrs.  Wood- 
pecker is  of  ten  forced  to  live,  during  the  cold  winter 
days,  in  the  last  Spring's  nest,  which  is  not  as 
warm  as  the  cosy  quarters  of  Mr.  Woodpecker. 

The  flicker,  or  golden-winged  woodpecker,  is 
a  larger  cousin,  who  is  a  very  handsome  and 
interesting  bird.  This  bright  bird  has  so  many 
names  that  I  hardly  know  which  one  to  call  him 
by.  He  is  known  by  thirty-six  different  names 
in  our  own  country. 


40  Natures  Children 

He  has  a  pair  of  wonderful  golden  wings, 
which  are  very  conspicuous  when  he  is  flying, 
and  he  is  dotted  freely  with  black  dots.  Most 
of  the  woodpeckers  are  silent  birds,  but  cousin 
golden  wings  is  a  noisy  fellow  and  almost  boist- 
erous, with  his  prolonged  cackle  whch  sounds 
like  "cah,  cah,  cah,  cah,  cah,"  or  his  pleasant 
"wick-up,  wick-up,  wick-up". 

This  gay  woodpecker  is  often  seen  upon  the 
ground  looking  for  worms  and  slugs,  but  you  will 
rarely,  if  ever,  see  any  of  the  black  and  white 
woodpeckers  on  the  ground. 

Golden  wings  does  not  stay  with  us  during 
the  cold  weather,  but  flies  away  to  the  south,  and 
we  miss  his  cheery  call  notes  and  his  bright 
yellow  and  black  coat. 

It  is  a  comical  sight  to  see  two  golden-winged 
woodpeckers  making  love  to  a  demure  female. 
They  will  bob  their  heads  about  and  make 
bows  to  the  lady  bird,  and  then  back  off  and 
look  at  her  from  a  distance  and  then  come 
forward  again,  in  the  most  gallant  manner. 

The  largest  and  most  gorgeous  of  all  the 
woodpecker  family  is  the  pileated  woodpecker, 


Nature's  Children  41 

which  is  as  large  as  a  crow.  His  coat  shines 
like  black  satin,  and  his  crest  is  like  a  flame, 
but  he  is  rarely  seen  in  these  parts,  although  a 
sight  of  this  shy  and  wonderful  bird  is  worth 
travelling  miles  for. 

So  these  are  my  merry  little  woodchoppers. 
If  you  will  note  carefully  the  description  that  I 
have  given  of  each,  you  will  be  able  to  tell  their 
names  for  youself,  when  they  light  upon  the  old 
apple-tree,  and  set  the  echoes  ringing  with  their 
merry  rat-a-tat-tats. 


VI 


HOW  LITTLE  ANIMALS  AND   BIRDS 
ARE  TAUGHT  OBEDIENCE 

It  would  surprise  you  children,  who  do  not 
always  mind  quickly  when  your  parents  speak, 
to  know  how  the  little  animals  and  birds  are 
taught  obedience  in  the  fields  and  woods,  and 
how  well  they  mind. 

This  is  necessary  to  keep  them  from  harm, 
and  their  wild  parents  do  not  hesitate  to  punish 
them  most  severely  if  they  persist  in  disobeying. 
When  a  mother  deer  finds  that  her  offspring  will 
not  mind.,  and  that  no  amount  of  effort  on  her 
part  will  make  it,  she  sometimes  kills  it,  for  she 
is  wise  and  knows  that  it  will  soon  meet  a  tragic 
death  at  the  hands  of  some  wild  beast  if  left  to 
disobey. 

When  the  young  wild  creatures  arc  born,  they 

have  no  wisdom  of  their  own,  only  a  certain 
42 


44  Nature's  Children 

cunning  that  they  have  inherited  from  their 
ancestors,  who  have  roamed  the  woods  so  long 
and  had  to  take  care  of  themselves  in  many 
perils.  So  the  young  forest  babies  have  to  be 
taught  by  their  parents. 

This  teaching  is  partly  by  imitation,  for  the 
young  soon  learn  to  do  what  they  see  their  parents 
doing  and  it  is  these  lessons  that  the  wood-folk 
must  learn  if  they  are  to  live  and  be  happy  after 
their  kind. 

So  the  baby  grouse,  or  partridge,  as  it  is  often 
wrongly  called,  is  taught  to  hide  at  a  signal  from 
the  mother  grouse.  No  matter  what  the  chicks 
are  doing,  and  it  may  be  something  that  they 
would  not  like  to  leave  off,  like  picking  up  bugs 
in  the  mould,  when  the  old  partridge  gives  the 
call  that  means  hide,  each  chick  must  hide 
instantly  to  the  best  of  his  ability. 

It  would  surprise  you  too,  to  know  how  well 
they  can  hide.  They  may  be  scampering  around 
among  the  ferns  and  grasses,  but  at  the  sound 
of  alarm,  all  will  disappear  as  suddenly  as  though 
the  earth  had  opened  and  swallowed  them. 
One  will  run  under  a  leaf,  another  may  crouch 


Nature's  Children  45 

by  a  stone  that  just  matches  his  color,  or  perhaps 
one  may  be  in  plain  sight,  but  he  will  keep  so 
still  that  you  think  him  a  bit  of  dirt  or  the  end  of  a 
stick.  Then,  no  matter  how  much  you  tramp 
up  and  down,  even  though  you  stepped  upon 
them  and  killed  them,  not  a  chick  would  move 
until  the  mother  partridge  gave  the  call  that 
meant  come. 

When  the  doe  leaves  her  little  dapple  fawn 
under  the  top  of  a  fallen  tree,  and  goes  down  to 
the  bank  of  the  river  to  eat  lily-pads,  she  says 
to  the  little  fawn,  "Now  I  am  going  to  the  river 
to  get  breakfast,  and  whatever  comes  along,  you 
stay  right  here  under  the  tree-top  and  don't  make 
any  noise  and  don't  move.  If  you  do  something 
will  get  you. " 

So  the  little  dapple  fellow  will  curl  down  under 
the  tree-tops,  where  the  boughs  hide  him  nicely, 
and  go  to  sleep.  Perhaps  he  will  awake  long 
before  his  mother's  return.  Maybe  he  will  be 
lonesome  and  want  his  mother,  or  perhaps  he  will 
see  some  wild  animal,  like  the  wildcat,  or  the 
lynx,  going  by. 

He  will  be  very  much  afraid  of  such  an  animal, 


46  Nature's  Children 

but  if  he  is  wise  and  minds  his  mother,  the  wild 
creature  will  probably  not  find  him.  But  if  he 
should  bleat,  or  start  to  run,  he  would  soon  be 
overtaken  and  killed. 

The  old  bear  will  often  leave  her  cubs  and  go 
away  for  hours,  and  expect  to  find  them  just 
where  she  left  them  when  she  returns. 

Perhaps  when  she  goes  away  she  says  to  them, 
"Now,  Johnny  Bears,  I  am  going  after  a  young 
pig  and  I  do  not  want  you  to  stray  from  home 
while  I  am  gone.  If  you  are  good  and  do  as  I 
tell  you  perhaps  there'll  be  some  pig  for  each  of 
you,  but  if  you  are  naughty  you  will  be  punished." 

Then  perhaps  the  old  bear  will  go  just  a  short 
distance  and  hide  behind  a  tree  to  see  if  her  cubs 
are  going  to  mind. 

For  awhile  the  little  bears  may  have  a  fine  time 
wrestling,  for  small  bears  like  to  wrestle  just  as 
well  as  boys  do,  but  finally  they  will  wonder 
where  their  mother  has  gone,  and  perhaps  they 
will  start  out  to  see. 

Then  the  old  bear,  who  has  been  watching 
all  the  time  from  behind  a  tree,  will  pounce  upon 
them,  and  give  them  a  terrible  box  apiece  upon 


Nature's  Children  47 

the  ears,  and  send  them  whining  back  to  the  den. 
The  old  bear  is  a  wise  mother  and  she  knows 
that  it  is  much  better  for  her  to  box  the  cubs' 
ears,  even  if  it  does  hurt,  than  it  would  be  for  them 
to  follow  after  her  and  perhaps  be  killed  or  taken 
alive  for  some  menagerie. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  ways  in  which  wild 
mothers  seek  to  teach  their  young  the  wisdom 
that  has  protected  their  kind  so  well. 

They  are  not  all  taught  the  same  kind  of 
lessons,  but  each  is  taught  the  thing  that  will  be 
useful  to  him  in  keeping  well  and  happy. 


VII 


THE   LITTLE  WHITE    HOUSE   ON   BEE 
STREET 

The  little  white  house  on  Bee  Street  is  a 
beehive  standing  in  a  row  of  a  dozen  white  houses 
which  are  side  by  side  and  of  an  equal  distance 
apart,  like  the  houses  on  a  street. 

Never  did  the  house  of  man  contain  as  many 
inhabitants  as  do  these  houses  of  wonderful 
insects.  If  the  swarm  is  a  small  one  even,  the 
house  will  contain  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand 
inhabitants,  but  if  it  is. a  large  one  it  will  contain 
fifty  or  sixty  thousand.  This  number  of  people 
would  make  a  good-sized  city. 

In  all  this  large  family  there  is  but  one  mother, 
and  that  is  the  queen  bee.  She  is  larger  and 
longer  than  her  subjects  and  rather  more  beauti- 
ful. Her  work  is  to  lay  the  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  eggs  necessary  to  keep  the  life  of  the 
48 


BEES  SWARMING 


5°  Nature's  Children 

hive  going.  You  must  remember  that  the  life 
of  a  bee  is  from  a  month  and  a  half  to  two  months, 
so  eggs  have  to  be  continually  hatched  out  to 
make  up  for  the  bees  that  are  constantly  dying. 
It  is  estimated  that  in  the  laying  season  the  queen 
lays  from  two  to  three  thousand  eggs  per  day. 
In  the  course  of  her  life,  of  a  few  years,  she  lays 
over  half  a  million  eggs. 

Nearly  all  of  the  rest  of  the  bees  in  the  hive 
are  the  queen's  daughters,  or  the  working  bees. 
Her  sons  are  only  a  few  in  number  compared 
with  the  daughters.  They  do  not  work  and  lay 
up  honey  as  do  the  daughters,  but  are  lazy  fellows 
who  have  a  fine  time  while  they  live,  eating  the 
honey  that  the  workers  gather,  and  flying  about 
the  fields. 

As  soon  as  the  new  bees  are  hatched  they  are 
put  in  charge  of  some  of  the  workers,  who  are 
then  called  nurse  bees.  These  nurse  bees  feed 
the  little  new*bees,  and  take  care  of  them  until 
they  are  large  enough  to  fly  outside,  and  look 
out  for  themselves. 

Sometimes  the  hive  will  be  fairly  alive  with 
the  little  new  bees  and  then  the  nurse  bees  are 


Nature's  Children  51 

kept  very  busy  feeding  them.  They  are  fed 
upon  what  is  called  bee  bread.  It  consists  of 
pollen  taken  from  the  early  flowers,  stuck  together 
with  honey.  Upon  this  food  the  young  bees 
thrive  and  they  are  soon  able  to  go  forth  and 
gather  honey  for  the  hive. 

When  the  lilac  and  the  first  fruit  trees  blossom 
you  will  notice  that  they  are  swarming  with 
bees.  In  nearly  every  flower  there  is  a  bee. 
She  is  standing  almost  upon  her  head  reaching 
away  down  into  the  flower  for  the  honey  which 
the  sun  and  the  rain  have  stored  up  in  some 
marvelous  manner.  The  bee  licks  out  the  honey 
with  her  tongue,  and  places  it  in  her  honey 
stomach.  This  stomach  is  just  in  front  of  her 
real  stomach.  By  the  time  the  bee  gets  home 
to  the  hive  the  honey  is  partly  digested,  and  that 
is  why  sick  girls  and  boys  can  often  eat  honey 
when  they  can  eat  nothing  else. 

All  of  the  sections  at  the  top  of  the  hive  are 
filled  with  wax  cells  and  into  these  cells  the  bee 
puts  her  honey.  When  the  cell  is  full  she  seals 
it  up. 

The  cells  were  also  made  by  the  bees.     From 


52  Nature's  Children 

flower  to  flower  she  went,  gathering  the  wax 
until  she  had  enough.  Then  she  worked  it  into 
place  and  drew  it  out  into  these  wonderful  cells. 

The  bees  not  only  visit  the  orchard  and  the 
flower  garden  for  honey,  but  they  go  away  into 
the  deep  woods,  and  gather  fine  honey  from 
many  of  the  trees  when  they  are  in  blossom. 
The  basswood  tree  is  celebrated  for  its  honey. 

Also  all  the  wild  flowers  along  the  roadside 
are  visited.  No  flower  is  too  small  or  too  insigni- 
ficant for  the  bees  to  take  notice  of,  provided  it 
contains  honey. 

They  will  travel  as  far  as  three  miles  for  honey 
when  they  cannot  readily  get  it  nearer  home. 
The  flowers  from  which  they  get  the  most  are 
the  white  clover,  the  golden  rod,  the  buckwheat 
and  the  blossoms  on  the  basswood  tree. 

I  have  seen  it  estimated  that  the  bees  must 
visit  sixty-two  thousand  heads  of  clover  to  get  a 
pound  of  honey,  so  you  can  see  how  hard  they 
must  work,  and  what  labor  it  is  merely  to  make 
one  pound  of  honey. 

When  we  consider  that  a  hive  sometimes 
makes  one  hundred  pounds  in  a  season,  the 


Nature's  Children  53 

number  of  trips  that  they  would  make  would 
be  almost  more  than  one  could  calculate. 

All  through  the  summer  months  the  bees  are 
busy  gathering  honey  and  also  late  into  the 
autumn,  for  you  know  the  goldenrod  and  the 
purple  aster  bloom  very  late.  It  is  not  until  the 
really  cold  weather  sets  in  that  they  go  into  the 
hive  for  good,  where  they  are  sleepy  and  stupid 
until  spring  comes  again. 

If  the  season  has  been  a  good  one  and  the 
bees  have  laid  up  a  lot  of  honey,  the  bee  keeper 
takes  away  a  part  of  it  from  the  hive  for  himself. 

He  usually  leaves  from  ten  to  twenty  pounds 
for  the  bees  to  eat  during  the  cold  months. 
Sometimes  he  also  feeds  them  melted  sugar  so 
that  he  can  keep  more  of  the  honey  for  himself. 

During  the  winter  the  bees  gather  together  in 
a  large  round  cluster  and  keep  continually  mov- 
ing about  so  as  to  keep  warm.  Of  course,  the 
bees  in  the  middle  of  the  cluster  are  the  warmest, 
so  they  keep  taking  turns  at  the  middle. 

No  matter  how  far  away  from  home  the  bee 
strays,  when  she  is  gathering  honey,  she  is  never 
lost.  As  soon  as  her  honey  stomach  is  full  she 


54  Nature's  Children 

will  start  for  home  in  a  course  as  straight  as  a 
ray  of  light. 

The  honey  bee  will  rarely  go  into  any  house 
but  her  own.  At  the  door  of  each  hive  are  a 
dozen  or  twenty  sentinels  who  watch  the  bees 
carefully  as  they  enter,  so  as  to  see  that  other 
bees  do  not  get  into  the  hive  and  steal  their  honey. 
If  any  strange  bee  is  found  trying  to,  she  is  quickly 
driven  away. 

Sometimes  when  the  hive  gets  too  full  of  bees, 
a  very  queer  thing  happens.  The  queen  decides 
that  she  will  take  a  part  of  the  members  of  her 
household  and  go  away.  Then  there  is  a  great 
buzzing  of  wings,  and  sometimes  the  air  is  fairly 
black  with  bees  about  the  hive. 

Soon  the  queen  leads  them  to  some  nearby 
tree  where  all  hang  upon  a  limb.  Each  bee  hang- 
ing to  the  one  above  it  until  there  is  a  long  cluster. 
Often  it  is  as  large  as  a  peck  measure.  Then 
the  queen  sends  away  some  scouts  to  find  a  new 
place  for  them  to  live. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  in  a  hollow  tree  in  the  woods, 
or  maybe  it  is  in  a  hole  in  a  cliff.  If  the  bee 
keeper  does  not  get  them  into  a  new  hive  before 
the  scouts  return  they  will  all  fly  away  and  be  lost. 


VIII 

THE    FRIENDLY   TREES 

It  will  surprise  you,  children,  if  you  have  never 
stopped  to  think  about  it,  to  know  what  a  great 
blessing  trees  are  to  man.  Not  only  to  man, 
but  also  to  the  birds  and  four-footed  creatures, 
many  of  whom  could  hardly  live  without  them. 

Every  child  knows  the  trees  about  his  home. 
They  are  all  associated  with  his  play,  which 
could  hardly  go  on  without  them. 

The  old  spreading  elm  where  the  swing  is 
hung  and  the  maple  under  whose  friendly  shade 
a  cubby-house  was  builded.  The  horse  chestnut, 
with  its  peculiar  leaves  and  blossoms,  and  still 
more  peculiar  nuts;  the  mountain  ash,  standing 
in  the  back  yard,  glowing  with  bright  berries 
in  the  autumn. 

All  these  common  shade  trees,  and  many  more 
that  I  have  not  mentioned,  are  familiar  friends, 

and  dear  to  the  heart  of  every  country  child, 

55 


56  Nature's  Children 

and  many  city  children  enjoy  shade  trees  as  well, 
for  man  has  felt  that  he  could  not  get  along  with- 
out trees,  so  he  has  brought  them  in  from  the 
country,  and  planted  them  along  all  the  broad 
streets  and  on  his  lawn,  that  his  eyes  might  be 
rested  by  the  pleasant  green  foliage. 

If  the  shade  trees  are  dear  to  the  heart  of 
childhood,  the  fruit  trees  are  still  more  highly 
prized.  What  would  your  home  be  without 
the  peach  and  the  pear  trees,  the  cherries,  the 
plums  and  the  apples  ?  What  pink  and  white 
clouds  of  sweetness,  beauty  and  fragrance  the 
trees  are  in .  blossom  time  and  what  pleasing 
colors  the  fruit  takes  on  when  it  is  ripe.  In 
the  tropical  countries  some  people  live  entirely 
upon  fruit,  so  the  good  trees  give  them  all  their 
living. 

If  we  were  to  journey  into  foreign  lands  we 
should  find  many  queer  trees,  some  bearing 
figs,  others  dates,  and  others  cocoanuts,  while 
the  strangest  of  all  is  called  the  bread  tree. 
In  the  land  where  that  tree  grows  the  housewife 
does  not  have  to  make  bread  at  all,  for  it  grows 
already  made  upon  a  tree. 


58  Nature's  Children 

But  we  do  not  have  to  go  so  far  from  home 
to  find  uses  for  trees  that  would  make  it  almost 
impossible  for  man  to  live  without  them. 

If  there  were  no  trees,  of  what  would  man 
build  his  houses  and  great  ships  ?  Of  what 
material  would  he  make  his  furniture  and  many 
of  his  farm  tools,  his  wagons  and  his  sleighs  ?  Of 
what  would  he  make  the  paper  that  our  books  and 
newspapers  are  printed  on,  for  nearly  all  of  this 
paper  is  made  from  wood,  which  is  first  ground 
up  very  fine  and  then  pressed  into  thin  sheets. 

Even  the  rude  American  Indian  discovered 
some  of  the  secrets  of  making  use  of  trees.  It 
was  he  who  first  knew  that  the  sap  of  the  maple 
was  sweet,  and  that,  if  it , were  boiled  down  it 
would  make  delicious  golden  syrup.  He  also 
fashioned  his  canoe  from  the  bark  of  a  tree 
called  the  canoe  birch,  and  the  framework  for 
the  red  man's  wigwam  was  small  saplings.  The 
loads  that  the  Indian  ponies  drew  were  often 
supported  by  two  poles.  One  end  being 
fastened  to  the  horse  and  the  other  allowed  to 
drag  upon  the  ground.  So  you  will  see  that  even 
savage  people  knew  and  valued  the  trees. 


Nature's  Children  59 

If  the  trees  are  a  great  benefit  to  man,  the 
birds  and  the  squirrels  and  many  of  the  four- 
footed  creatures  who  live  upon  the  ground  could 
hardly  get  along  without  them. 

Many  of  the  birds  and  most  of  the  squirrels 
have  their  homes  in  the  trees.  Where  would  the 
oriole  hang  her  wonderful  basket  nest  if  there 
were  no  trees  ?  You  might  say  that  the  wood- 
pecker would  chop  himself  a  hole  and  make  his 
nest  in  a  telegraph  pole  even  if  there  were  no 
trees,  but  you  forget  there  would  be  no  wooden 
telegraph  poles  without  trees. 

Where  could  the  gray  squirrel  hang  his  winter 
hammock  if  not  in  the  top  of  a  tall  maple  ?  Of 
what  use  would  the  flying  squirrel's  queer  wings 
be  if  he  could  not  first  climb  a  tree  so  that 
he  might  coast  down  on  the  air  to  the  foot  of 
another  ? 

The  trees  shelter  the  birds  and  squirrels  from 
their  enemies  and  give  them  a  place  in  which 
to  hide  from  danger,  and  they  also  shelter  them 
from  both  heat  and  cold.  In  the  summer  the 
birds  and  squirrels  can  sing  and  chatter  in  the 
cool  green  shade,  and  in  the  winter  many  of 


60  Nature's  Children 

them  can  hide  away  in  hollow  trees  during  the 
bitter  cold. 

The  trees  are  not  only  the  homes  of  many 
of  the  birds  and  squirrels,  but  they  also  give 
them  much  of  their  food.  Chestnuts,  walnuts, 
butternuts  and  hazel  nuts  are  all  dear  to  the 
heart  of  a  squirrel,  and  they  all  grow  on  trees  or 
bushes.  The  partridge  too  is  fond  of  the  beech- 
nuts, but  the  trees  feed  the  partridge  in  still 
another  way,  when  food  is  scarce  and  the  need 
is  very  great. 

Did  you  never  see  the  ruffed  grouse  budding 
in  the  orchard  just  before  dusk  of  a  winter's 
night  ?  If  you  have  not,  you  have  missed  some- 
thing worth  seeing. 

When  I  was  a  child  and  lived  upon  a  farm  the 
partridges  would  get  their  supper  very  near  to  the 
house  during  the  coldest  weather,  and  I  used  to 
spend  a  pleasant  half  hour  watching  them.  They 
would  perch  in  the  top  of  the  tree,  where  the  wind 
swayed  the  branches  so  that  they  could  hardly 
hold  on,  and  pick,  pick  away  at  the  buds.  When 
their  crops  were  full  as  they  could  hold,  the  birds 
would  whir  away  to  the  deep  woods  and  roost  in 


A  HOME  IN  A  TREE 


62  Natures  Children 

the  top  of  an  evergreen  tree,  if  it  was  not  too 
cold,  but  on  the  coldest  night  they  would  bury 
themselves  in  the  snow  so  that  the  wind  and  the 
cold  could  not  get  at  them. 

The  red  squirrel  also  lives  on  buds,  when  he 
cannot  find  any  of  his  store  which  he  has  scat- 
tered about  in  a  dozen  places,  but  he  likes  a 
frozen  last  year's  apple  better,  when  he  can 
find  it.  He  gnaws  the  apple  open  and  eats  the 
seeds,  just  as  he  would  gnaw  open  a  nut  and  eat 
the  meat,  and  he  will  eat  the  apple  too,  if  he  is 
very  hungry. 

The  rabbit  also  knows  the  value  of  buds  and 
bark,  but  his  principal  food  is  bark.  He  also 
likes  to  use  the  tree  for  a  rubbing  post,  and  you 
will  frequently  see  where  he  has  rubbed  off 
some  of  his  white  fur.  Each  rabbit  has  his  own 
particular  rubbing  post  and  he  is  greatly  offended 
if  another  rabbit  uses  it. 

There  are  also  some  trees  which  bear  berries 
late  in  the  autumn  and  these  berries  stay  on  all 
winter  long.  Such  are  the  mountain  ash  and 
the  bright  berries  of  bittersweet  and  sumac. 
Many  of  the  birds  depend  upon  these  winter 


Nature's  Children  63 

berries  for  food.  The  quail  family  live  upon 
them  and  there  are  quite  sure  to  be  quail  where 
these  berries  are  plenty.  The  quail  is  a  stout- 
hearted little  fellow,  always  whistling  his  cheery 
"Bob-White,  Bob-White,  Bob-White,"  in  heat 
and  cold,  in  summer  and  winter,  and  he  would 
often  go  hungry  if  it  were  not  for  the  trees  that 
feed  him. 


IX 
BIRD  AND  ANIMAL  DOCTORS 

Just  how  much  birds  and  animals  know  about 
taking  care  of  their  diseases  and  wounds  no  one 
can  tell  surely.  Some  writers  claim  much  more 
for  their  skill  in  this  particular  than  do  others, 
but  from  the  best  knowledge  that  can  be  gathered 
they  do  a  great  deal  for  themselves  that  seems 
quite  remarkable. 

To  all  the  wild  creatures,  salt  must  really  be 
considered  as  a  medicine,  as  it  is  not  obtained 
naturally  in  any  of  their  food  products. 

All  the  members  of  the  deer  family,  among 
which  are  the  moose,  elk,  caribou,  black-tail 
and  white-tailed  deers  and  many  other  varie- 
ties, know  the  value  of  salt.  They  will  travel 
for  miles  to  the  salt  lick.  The  path  leading  to 
the  lick  will  often  be  worn  deep  into  the  soil 
like  an  old  cow  path. 

At  the  deer  lick  is  a  favorite  ambush  for  the 
64 


THE  DEER  FAMILY 


66  Nature's  Children 

Indian  hunter,  the  bear  and  the  panther,  for  all 
know  that  sooner  or  later  the  deer  will  come 
to  the  lick  for  their  medicine. 

The  mother  partridge  knows  how  to  doctor 
chicks  better  than  the  poultry  fancier  does. 
She  knows  that  if  they  are  to  be  kept  free  from 
lice,  nits  and  all  other  vermin  that  the  feathered 
folks  are  subject  to,  that  they  must  have  their 
daily  dust  bath.  Not  any  kind  of  a  dirt  bath 
will  do  either,  but  it  must  be  a  spot  with  certain 
properties  in  the  soil. 

If  the  chicks  become  dumpy  and  drooping, 
she  knows  that  their  systems  need  clearing  out, 
and  she  leads  them  to  certain  acrid  berries  which 
are  just  the  medicine  they  want.  All  through 
the  season  she  varies  their  food  as  their  size  and 
health  vary,  and  altogether  she  is  one  of  the 
very  wisest  of  wild  mothers. 

When  the  hunting  season  comes,  if  she  or  any 
of  her  family  are  wounded,  and  are  likely  to 
bleed  to  death,  they  will  plug  up  the  wounds 
with  very  fine  down  taken  from  under  their 
coarse  feathers  and  thus  stop  the  flow  of  blood. 

Even  creatures  as  low  down  in  the  scale  of 


Nature's  Children  67 

intelligence  as  the  fishes  show  considerable  skill 
in  taking  care  of  themselves. 

Old  fishermen  tell  us  whenever  the  salmon  is 
injured,  and  his  bright  silver  scales  scraped  off 
in  the  spring  migration  up  the  northern  rivers, 
this  wise  fish  at  once  turns  back  to  the  sea.  He 
knows  better  than  any  one  can  tell  him  that  as 
soon  as  any  scales  are  torn  away,  that  at  once  a 
fungus  growth  will  begin  to  form,  which  if  al- 
lowed to  grow  would  in  time  kill  him.  There 
is  something  in  the  action  of  the  salt  water  that 
will  prevent  this  growth,  and  allow  new  scales 
to  form. 

But  the  wisdom  and  intelligence  of  the  wild 
creatures  is  most  often  seen  in  their  knowledge 
of  poison.  The  squirrels  make  a  practice  of 
eating  fungi,  and  who  told  them  which  are  the 
poison  kinds  and  which  not  ?  Many  of  these 
growths  are  so  much  alike  that  man  is  often 
deceived,  even  when  he  has  made  a  study  of 
fungi,  but  not  so  the  squirrel. 

Sheep  and  cattle  will  feed  in  a  pasture  that 
abounds  with  poison  plants,  yet  they  do  not 
often  get  poisoned.  Probably  each  day  they 


68  Nature's  Children 

feed  all  about  poisonous  plants,  but  they  have 
a  God-given  instinct  that  tells  them  to  let  it 
alone.  It  is  probably  the  same  way  with  the 
squirrel.  I  do  not  imagine  that  he  examines  a 
fungus  carefully  before  he  eats  it,  but  if  something 
tells  him  that  it  is  not  well  for  him  to  eat  a  certain 
fungus  he  lets  it  alone. 

There  is  an  old  proverb  that  when  the  cat  or 
the  dog  eats  grass  it  is  going  to  rain.  Now  the 
proverb  may  mean  that,  but  it  means  something 
still  more  important  to  pussy  or  the  dog.  It 
means  that  their  system  is  calling  for  something 
green,  and  that  the  grass  is  a  simple  medicine 
which  will  act  beneficially  upon  them. 

Notice  how  pussy  will  purr  and  roll  about  the 
catnip  bed  whenever  she  comes  near  it.  This 
is  the  cat  cure-all  and  pussy  knows  it,  and  her 
heart  is  filled  with  delight  to  know  there  will  be 
a  supply  for  the  winter  months. 

Probably  the  greatest  intelligence  shown 
by  any  animals  in  regard  to  medicine,  and 
particularly  poison,  is  shown  by  dogs  and 
monkeys. 

It  says  in  the  Scriptures  that  even  the  dogs 


Nature's  Children  69 

came  and  licked  the  sores  of  Lazarus,  and  he 
could  not  have  had  better  doctors.  There  is 
something  in  the  dog's  saliva  that  is  a  perfect 
antiseptic.  This  means  that  it  cleanses  and 
heals  the  wound. 

A  man  from  Klondyke  tells  of  a  dog  that 
ministered  so  often  and  so  well  to  his  fellow- 
sufferers  that  he  gained  the  name  of  the  doctor. 

When  the  dog  teams  are  travelling  day  after 
day  over  the  frozen  snow  and  ice  their  feet  get 
very  sore,  being  scratched  and  cut  by  the  rough 
road  they  have  to  travel.  The  harness  also 
sometimes  galls  them. 

Each  night,  when  the  harnesses  had  been 
taken  from  the  dog-team,  and  they  had  been  fed 
their  dried  fish,  the  dog  called  doctor,  would  go 
the  rounds  licking  all  the  sores,  bruises  and  cuts 
upon  his  fellow  sufferers.  Each  dog  submitted 
to  be  licked  when  his  turn  came,  for  he  seemed 
to  know  he  was  in  the  hands  of  a  skillful  doctor. 

The  coffee  raisers  of  South  Africa  have  long 
been  troubled  by  the  gray  monkeys  that  eat  the 
coffee  fruit  of  which  the  coffee  berry  is  the  center. 

Finally  an  attempt  was  made  to  poison  the 


70  Nature's  Children 

marauders  with  strychnine,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  deadly  poisons. 

Many  of  the  monkeys  became  ill,  but  all  began 
eating  a  certain  plant  which  acted  as  an  antidote, 
making  the  poison  harmless.  To  those  who 
were  too  sick  to  go  after  the  plant,  some  of  the 
well  monkeys  brought  it,  and  fed  it  to  them. 

The  government  of  this  country  was  so  im- 
pressed with  the  remarkable  intelligence  of  the 
gray  monkeys  in  regard  to  strychnine  that  they 
have  appointed  a  commission  to  experiment 
with  the  monkeys  and  wrest  their  secrets  from 
them. 

But  for  the  most  remarkable  demonstration 
of  the  animals'  knowledge  of  poison  we  must 
return  to  my  old  friend,  the  dog.  I  have  kept 
the  following  incident  until  the  last,  because 
to  me  it  is  most  convincing  that  there  is  a  God- 
given  instinct  in  animals  that  is  often  much 
wiser  than  the  intelligence  of  man. 

Dr.  Russell  H.  Conwell,  the  well-known 
lecturer  and  philanthropist  of  Philadelphia, 
vouches  for  the  truth  of  this  incident.  A  Phila- 
delphia minister  had  a  dog  which  was  sick; 


Nature's  Children  71 

several  persons  saw  the  dog,  and  all  at  once, 
cried  rabies,  just  as  most  people  do  when  they 
do  not  know  what  is  the  matter  with  the  poor 
canine. 

Finally  a  neighbor,  who  had  more  sense  than 
the  rest,  saw  the  dog,  and  at  once  pronounced  it 
poison. 

"Open  the.  door,"  he  said,  "and  let  the  dog 
go,  and  if  there  is  an  antidote  for  his  poison 
within  twenty  miles,  and  he  has  strength  left  to 
reach  it,  he  will  find  it." 

So  the  door  was  opened,  with  much  fear  and 
trembling  upon  the  part  of  the  spectators,  and 
the  poor  dog  started,  at  his  best  pace,  across  the 
lots  for  the  brook,  which  was  a  half  mile  distant. 

Arrived  at  the  stream,  he  plunged  in  and  began 
eating  ravenously  of  a  water  plant. 

When  he  had  eaten  enough,  he  came  out  and 
lay  upon  the  bank  and  seemed  better.  By 
night  time  he  had  fully  recovered  from  the  effects 
of  the  poison. 

The  minister  was  so  impressed  with  the  cure, 
that  he  procured  some  of  the  water  plant  and 
sent  it  to  Washington  to  be  analyzed. 


72  Nature's  Children 

A  few  days  afterwards  Mr.  Conwell  met  his 
minister  friend,  who  told  him  that  the  dog's 
knowledge  of  medicine  had  earned  him  fifty 
thousand  dollars. 

The  government  at  Washington  had  reported 
that  a  very  important  antidote  for  poison  had 
been  discovered  by  the  poor  dog  and  a  large 
house,  manufacturing  patent  medicine,  had 
bought  the  dog's  secret  of  his  master,  paying  him 
a  large  sum  of  money. 

Thus  was  the  poor  brute's  instinct  again  of 
service  to  man,  putting  to  shame  his  science 
gained  through  years  of  study. 

In  the  face  of  such  discoveries,  and  of  the 
daily  and  hourly  servke  that  the  faithful  canine 
gives  man,  it  behooves  us  not  to  despise  or 
underestimate  even  the  wisdom  of  a  dog. 


X 

WHAT  THE  WOLF  CUBS  ARE  TAUGHT 

It  is  away  up  in  the  wilderness  of  British 
America  and  the  wildest  portions  of  Canada  that 
the  wolf  cubs  are  born,  sometimes  in  April  or 
May. 

The  wolf  is  more  nearly  related  to  the  dog 
than  any  other  of  the  wild  creatures.  Wolves  are 
really  wild  dogs,  and  dogs  are  tamed  wolves 
whom  many  generations  of  life  with  man  has 
greatly  changed  in  their  habits  of  life.  It  would 
not  take  but  one  or  two  generations  for  a  dog  to 
return  to  a  wolf.  If  one  was  to  put  a  collie  pup 
into  the  den  with  a  litter  of  young  wolves,  the 
wolf  mother  would  bring  him  up  as  her  own, 
and  he  would  be  a  real  wolf  when  he  had  grown 
up. 

He  would  not  be  quite  as  large  or  savage  as 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  but  he  would  learn  to 

hunt  and  take  care  of  himself  just  like  a  wolf, 

73 


74  Nature's  Children 

and  he  would  resemble  them  in  nearly  all  par- 
ticulars. 

A  collie  dog  also  looks  considerably  like  a 
wolf.  He  has  the  wolf's  head  and  move- 
ments. 

It  is  a  wonderful  day  for  the  little  wolf  cubs 
when  they  are  brought  forth  into  the  sunlight  of 
the  great  world.  Up  to  this  time  they  have 
always  lived  in  the  den  which  was  dark  and 
cramped.  They  did  not  imagine  that  there  was 
any  such  place  as  the  outer  world;  to  them  the 
den  was  the  whole  world. 

So,  is  it  any  wonder  that  they  wink  and  blink 
and  look  about  them  wonderingly  when  they 
first  behold  the  great  world  ?  How  bright  the 
light  must  seem  to  them,  and  how  broad  the 
fields! 

For  the  first  day  they  stay  very  near  to  their 
mother,  but  they  are  at  once  pleased  with  the 
world.  The  air  is  so  fresh  and  sweet,  and 
there  is  so  much  that  is  strange.  Perhaps  they 
have  not  been  out  an  hour  when  they  are  rolling 
about  playing  with  each  other's  tails,  or  maybe 
nipping  and  pulling  at  each  other's  ears,  having 


Nature's  Children  75 

the  finest  frolic  that  they  have  ever  known.  They 
have  not  been  used  to  play,  for  the  den  was  so 
dark  that  they  did  little  but  eat  and  sleep. 

In  two  or  three  days  they  are  stalking  grass- 
hoppers and  crickets  in  the  grass.  Creeping 
after  them  as  cautiously  and  excitedly  as  though 
they  had  been  much  larger  game.  When  the 
wolf  cub  gets  near  enough,  he  will  pounce  upon 
the  grasshopper  with  his  paws,  and  then  shove 
his  pointed  nose  under,  to  see  if  he  has  got  him. 
If  he  has,  the  grasshopper  makes  a  dainty  bit  for 
the  hungry  cub.  But  perhaps  the  grasshopper 
flies  away  just  as  he  is  about  to  seize  him,  then 
the  wolf  has  to  follow  him  up  again,  or  find 
another. 

When  the  young  wolves  have  become  good 
grasshopper  hunters,  they  are  taken  further  into 
the  fields  to  hunt  for  mice. 

The  old  wolf  will  catch  the  first  two  or  three ; 
so  that  they  can  see  how  it  .is  done.  Their 
sharp  noses  will  soon  smell  out  the  runway  of  the 
mice  under  the  roots  of  the  grass.  The  old  wolf 
will  show  them  how  to  watch  for  that  rustle  and 
wriggle  in  the  grass.  Then  she  will  pounce  upon 


76  Nature's  Children 

the  spot  and  dig  the  mouse  out  before  he  has 
time  to  run  away. 

Catching  mice  is  much  harder  than  catching 
grasshoppers,  but  it  is  such  fun  for  the  small 
wolves,  that  they  want  to  catch  mice  all  the  time 
once  they  are  shown  how,  and  practice  makes 
perfect,  so  they  soon  can  catch  all  the  mice  they 
want.  This  diet  may  be  varied  by  an  occasional 
frog  or  crab  that  they  will  take  from  the  brook 
where  they  go  daily  for  water. 

It  is  a  wild,  exciting  day,  and  one  that  they  long 
remember  when  the  young  wolves  are  taken  into 
the  cover  to  hunt  rabbits.  They  soon  learn  thai 
it  is  one  thing  to  catch  a  mouse  or  a  grasshopper, 
but  that  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  catch  that 
nimble  fellow,  the  rabbit. 

Here  they  must  learn  to  work  together,  and 
to  play  into  each  other's  hands,  or  rather  mouths. 
Perhaps  one  wolf  stands  hidden  by  the  path 
where  they  think  the  rabbit  will  run,  while  the 
other  goes  thrashing  through  the  cover,  making 
all  the  noise  he  can,  so  that  he  finally  drives  the 
rabbit  right  into  the  mouth  of  his  waiting  com- 
rade. 


Nature's  Children  77 

These  young  wolves,  hunting  under  the 
guidance  of  their  wary  mother,  and  sometimes 
assisted  by  their  father,  soon  become  such  suc- 
cessful hunters  that  even  the  sly  and  fleet-footed 
fox  does  not  always  escape  when  they  drive  the 
cover  for  rabbits. 

In  the  early  autumn  the  ducks  and  geese  are 
flying  southward  and  they  will  stop  at  night  and 
sleep  upon  the  sand  along  the  shores  of  the  lonely 
wilderness  lakes.  It  is  while  they  are  peacefully 
sleeping  that  the  wolves  steal  upon  them.  Each 
wolf  gives  a  sharp  snap  at  one  of  the  long  necks, 
and  then  they  all  swing  their  goose  or  duck 
over  their  shoulders  and  go  away  for  a  fine  feast. 
Hunting  in  the  early  summer  for  the  nests  of 
the  wild  ducks,  among  the  barrens,  is  also  a 
pleasant  pastime  of  the  young  wolves'  puppy- 
hood. 

When  the  first  snow  comes  the  young  wolf, 
who  has  never  seen  it  before,  is  probably  amazed. 
How  soft  and  white  the  world  has  suddenly 
become!  How  silent  is  his  footfall!  There  is 
also  another  queer  thing.  Wherever  he  goes  he 
leaves  a  footprint  at  every  step.  So  does  the 


78  Nature's  Children 

rabbit  and  the  fox  and  the  weasel  and  the  squirrel 
and  all  the  other  little  furred  creatures  that  the 
hungry  wolf  will  hunt  in  winter. 

He  soon  learns  to  distinguish  all  these  tracks 
by  sight  as  well  as  by  scent,  and  to  follow  them 
successfully. 

It  is  when  the  terrible  storms  come  thundering 
down  from  the  frozen  Arctics,  and  the  fields  are 
covered  deep  with  snow,  and  when  it  is  so  cold 
that  the  trees  are  often  cracked  by  the  frost,  that 
the  wolf  is  put  to  his  wit's  end.  Then  he  has  to 
hunt  as  he  has  never  hunted  before.  Then  he 
will  do  that  most  dangerous  thing  of  all,  go 
prowling  about  the  houses  of  men,  trying  to  pick 
up  something  that  will  keep  him  from  starving. 

The  young  wolves  have  been  taught  to  shun 
man  and  to  avoid  traps,  and  it  is  only  when  the 
biting  cold  drives  them  to  it,  that  they  will  venture 
near  the  abode  of  this  strange  and  terrible  crea- 
ture whose  thunder  and  lightning  is  so  fatal  to 
even  an  old  strong  wolf. 

When  the  most  extreme  weather  of  all  comes, 
in  early  March,  and  game  has  become  scarce, 
and  they  have  lost  their  spare  flesh,  the  wolves 


Nature's  Children  79 

follow  the  trail  of  the  caribou  and  learn  to  hunt 
in  packs.  Then  the  wild  weird  hunting  cry  of 
the  pack  will  sound  through  the  snowclad  wilder- 
ness and  all  things  that  hear  will  shudder  and 
hope  that  they  are  not  to  be  hunted  that  night. 
The  wolves  to-day  will  rarely  touch  man,  whom 
they  have  learned  to  fear  and  respect. 


Xi 

HOW  TO  TELL  THE  BIRDS 

The  birds  are  the  friends  of  man.  They  build 
their  nests  near  to  his  abode  and  they  watch  his 
coming  and  going  with  much  curiousity. 

They  are  interested  in  all  he  is  doing,  so  we 
should  be  interested  in  the  birds  and  know  them 
by  name 

I  am  going  to  give  you  children  an  introduction 
to  some  of  the  more  common  birds,  and  tell  you 
just  a  little  of  their  life  and  habits. 

If,  some  morning  about  the  first  of  March 
or  perhaps  a  little  later,  you  are  out  with  your 
sled  sliding  on  the  crust  and  you  hear  a  sweet 
little  song  repeated  over  and  over,  "Cheerily, 
cheerily,  cheerily,"  you  may  be  glad.  A  little 
bird  friend  has  come  hundreds  of  miles  to  tell 
you  that  Spring  is  coming. 

At  first,  you  do  not  see  the  sweet  stranger, 

but  finally  you  discover  him  perched  upon  the 

80 


THE  BLUEBIRD 


82  Nature's  Children 

topmost  twig  of  elm  or  maple,  pouring  forth  his 
glad  news.  You  will  notice  at  once  that  he  is  a 
small  bird  with  a  red  vest,  and  a  hue  jacket. 
How  bright  he  looks  in  the  morning  sunlight  and 
how  sweet  his  simple  song  is,  "Cheerily,  cheerily, 
cheerily. " 

This  is  the  bluebird,  who  brings  us  the  news 
of  coming  spring. 

Some  morning,  two  or  three  weeks  later,  when 
you  look  out  of  the  window  you  will  see  a  jaunty 
bird,  hopping  about  over  the  brown  mowing 
looking  for  weed  seed,  or  almost  anything  that 
will  satisfy  a  good  appetite.  He  is  so  pert 
and  saucy  that  you  at  once  recognize  Cock- 
robin. 

Cock-robin  always  comes  north  a  week 
or  so  before  Mrs.  Robin.  Like  a  good  hus- 
band he  goes  ahead  to  make  things  easy  for 
his  wife. 

Perhaps  the  next  bird  that  you  notice  as  the 
spring  days  advance  is  a  modest  looking  little 
fellow  in  a  rusty  coat.  He  may  be  flying  about 
in  the  wagon  shed  or  perching  on  the  top  of  a 
bar-post.  If  you  ask  him  what  his  name  is,  he 


Nature's  Children  83 

will  reply  in  the  most  polite  bird  language, 
"Phoebe,  Phoebe,  Phoebe."  This  is  the  Phoebe 
and  a  little  later  he  may  build  a  nest  in  the  wagon 
shed.  He  is  a  fly  catcher  and  you  will  often 
see  him  sitting  on  a  limb  in  a  sunny  spot  watching 
for  flies.  When  he  sees  one  he  will  dart  out  to 
catch  it,  and  then  go  back  to  his  perch  again. 

Next,  a  gay,  light-hearted  fellow  will  come 
skimming  over  the  fields.  He  rises  and  falls 
in  his  flight  as  airy  as  thistledown  and  perhaps 
he  is  chattering  as  he  comes.  If  he  is  not,  he 
soon  will  be,  and  he  will  keep  it  up  all  the  summer 
long.  This  is  the  barn  swallow,  and  no  barn  is 
complete  without  him.  What  a  pleasant  pastime 
it  is  to  watch  him  and  his  fellows  on  a  rainy  day 
in  the  great  barn.  How  sociable  they  are  and 
what  good  times  they  have,  talking  about  things 
in  birdland! 

Some  morning  about  the  middle  of  April  when 
you  have  gone  to  the  pasture  for  arbutus  you 
will  hear  a  new  note.  It  is  not  a  song  but  a  far- 
reaching  bugle  note:  "Honk,  honk,  honk." 
You  look  about  in  every  direction  but  the  right 
one,  and  do  not  discover  from  whence  the  sound 


84  Nature's  Children 

comes.  But  look  up.  Away  up  in  the  sky  you 
will  see  a  number  of  great  birds  flying  in  a  queer 
shaped  flock.  It  is  just  like  the  letter  "V"; 
don't  you  recognize  it  ?  The  point  is  towards 
the  north  and  the  birds  are  flying  very  rapidly. 
That  one  at  the  point  of  the  "V"  is  an  old  and 
wise  gander,  and  he  is  leading  the  flock  of  geese 
northward.  Perhaps  they  have  been  flying 
for  five  hundred  miles,  and  maybe  they  will 
fly  as  much  further  before  they  light.  The 
fastest  express  train  would  be  left  far  behind  by 
this  wonderful  flock  of  birds. 

They  will  go  to  far-away  Labrador  or  to  Hud-- 
son's Bay,  where  they  will  raise  their  young,  and 
in  the  autumn  you  will  see  them  all  flying  back 
again,  but  this  time  the  point  of  the  "V"  will 
,be  towards  the  south.  They  are  now  seeking 
their  winter  home  in  Louisiana. 

Perhaps  some  morning  before  you  get  up  you 
are  awakened  by  a  great  scolding  and  chattering 
in  the  old  elm  tree  in  front  of  the  house.  You 
jump  up  and  run  to  the  window,  and  find  that 
the  tree  is  filled  with  birds.  So  many  there  are 
that  you  cannot  count  them,  and  each  is  scolding 


Nature's  Children  85 

and  squawking  away  in  wheezy  notes.  They 
are  gaily  dressed  birds,  with  purple  coats 
dashed  with  bottle  green,  and  many  other  colors 
that  sparkle  and  glint  in  the  sunlight. 

These  are  the  purple  grackles,  and  they  have 
come  north  in  a  great  flock  just  as  they  always  do, 
and  have  stopped  in  the  old  elm,  to  talk  it  all 
over,  and  argue  about  what  they  will  do  next. 
They  are  cousins  to  the  redwings  and  are  a  gay  and 
saucy  company.  They  usually  build  their  nests 
in  evergreen  trees  and  stay  around  all  summer. 

The  oriole  and  the  scarlet  tanager  are  two 
gaily  dressed  birds  who  come  north  at  about  the 
same  time.  The  oriole  sings  a  sweet  flute-like 
song,  but  the  song  of  the  tanager  is  high-keyed 
and  not  as  pleasant. 

You  all  know  the  oriole's  nest — -that  wonderful 
hanging  basket  that  swings  from  a  limb  in  the 
elm  ?  He  always  fastens  it  to  the  limb  with  a 
string  which  it  sometimes  takes  him  days  to  find. 
You  can  help  him  in  his  nest  building,  if  you  will 
place  a  good  stout  string  where  he  can  find  it  at 
the  proper  time. 

One  of  the  last  of  our  sweet  singers  to  arrive 


86  Nature's  Children 

is  blithe  bobolink,  but  he  makes  up  for  his  tardi- 
ness by  the  wonderful  song  that  he  pours  out  as 
soon  as  he  arrives.  You  will  see  him  perched 
on  the  top  of  a  bush  and  then  you  will  hear, 
"spink,  spank,  spink,  tinker  tank  tink,  spinker 
spank  spink,  tinker  tank  tink,"  repeated  over 
and  over.  Mr.  Bobolink  wears  a  black  and 
white  suit,  but  Mrs.  Bobolink  dresses  in  a  plain 
yellowish  brown  suit. 

In  the  south  where  the  bobolink  has  his  winter 
home  he  has  a  hard  time  of  it.  There  he  is  called 
the  rice  bird,  for  he  lives  on  rice  during  the  winter. 
There  men  kill  him,  and  make  him  into  a  pie, 
but  it  is  much  better  to  keep  him  alive  and  have 
him  sing  to  you. 

There  are  several  birds  who  will  tell  you  their 
name  even  before  you  ask  it.  Such  is  the  shy 
cuckoo,  whom  you  will  hear  in  a  treetop  saying 
his  own  name  over  and  over  just  before  it  rains. 
Sometimes  he  tries  to  fool  you  by  simply  saying 
coo,  but  you  will  still  know  that  he  is  the  cuckoo. 

The  quail  or  Bob-White  is  another  bird  who  is 
not  afraid  to  call  his  name.  He  too,  likes  to 
sing  before  the  coming  of  rain.  You  will  see  him 


Nature's  Children  87 

sitting  erect  upon  a  bar-post  calling  in  a  sweet 
shrill  whistle,  "Bob-White,  Bob-Bob-White." 

There  are  half  a  dozen  kinds  of  woodpeckers, 
all  of  whom  live  in  a  hole  in  a  tree.  If  you  see 
a  bird  come  out  of  a  hole  in  a  tree  it  is  quite 
likely  a  woodpecker.  The  bluebird  frequently 
uses  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Woodpecker's  last  year's 
house  for  her  own,  but  you  would  never  mistake 
a  woodpecker  for  a  bluebird.  If  you  see  the 
woodpecker  fly  you  will  notice  that  he  has  an  up 
and  down  motion  and  you  can  tell  him  in  that 
way.  Perhaps  he  will  be  a  large  bird  with 
yellow  spots  on  him,  then  he  is  called  the  yellow 
hammer.  If  he  is  a  very  small  woodpecker 
about  five  or  six  inches  long,  you  will  know  that 
he  is  the  downy,  a  very  bright  interesting  little 
bird.  If  he  has  yellow  on  his  breast,  you  may 
call  him  the  yellow-bellied  sapsucker.  This 
smart  woodpecker  has  discovered  the  secret  of 
the  maple  and  in  the  early  spring  he  drills  holes 
in  the  maple  tree,  and  drinks  the  sweet  sap. 
Now  isn't  that  clever  for  a  bird  ? 

The  crow  and  the  jay  you  will  often  see  in  the 
cornfield,  for  both  consider  that  a  part  of  what 


88  Nature's  Children 

the  farmer  raises  is  theirs.  The  crow  is  a  large, 
black,  sleek  fellow,  but  the  blue  jay  is  a  noisy 
saucy  bird,  very  vain  of  his  blue  coat. 

There  are  many  other  kinds  of  birds  that  come 
and  go  as  the  seasons  change,  and  all  are  interest- 
ing, some  for  their  dress  and  some  for  their  song, 
and  some  for  their  queer  ways. 

Finally  when  the  frosts  have  killed  the  flowers 
and  the  fields  and  woods  are  no  longer  green  and 
fresh,  nearly  all  of  the  birds  fly  away  to  the 
south  where  they  live  a  quiet  life  waiting  for 
another  spring,  so  that  they  may  again  come 
back  to  us. 

But  there  are  a  few  that  stay  with  us  all  through 
the  winter.  Such  is  the  chickadee,  a  very  plump 
pretty  little  fellow,  who  is  also  called  the  black- 
capped  titmouse,  because  he  wears  a  black  cap. 
There  are  other  birds  who  come  down  to  us 
from  the  north  when  the  winter  is  too  cold,  such 
as  the  snowbird  and  the  grosbeak. 

You  may  spend  many  a  pleasant  hour  watching 
them  through  the  window  if  you  will  put  up  a 
box  of  weed  seed  or  some  meat  where  they  can 
find  it. 


THE  BLUE  JAY 


go  Nature's  Children 

At  my  own  home  we  spread  a  breakfast  table 
for  the  birds  each  morning  and  sometimes  it  is 
so  covered  with  birds  that  you  can  hardly  see  the 
box.  Even  a  shy  old  crow  occasionally  flies  up 
and  takes  toll  from  the  box. 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  be  able  to  feed  the  poor 
birds  in  the  winter  when  food  means  so  much  to 
them.  I  often  wonder  how  they  can  keep  their 
toes  warm  on  cold  winter  nights.  That  some 
of  them  perish  in  the  driving  storm  and  the 
bitter  cold,  we  all  know.  But  most  of  them 
take  care  of  themselves  much  better  than  you 
or  I  would  out  in  the  cold,  and  are  happy  in  their 
own  way. 


XII 
WHAT  THE  LITTLE  BROOK  TOLD  ME 

I  am  the  little  brook  that  comes  from  far  away, 
through  fields  and  meadows,  and  under  many 
bridges  I  travel. 

I  am  more  useful  than  you  can  possibly 
imagine. 

Where  I  begin  upon  a  hillside  there  is  a  bright 
and  sparkling  spring  full  of  pure  sweet  water. 
All  about  the  spring  are  ferns  and  mosses  and  the 
water  is  as  clear  as  crystal. 

Every  day  some  little  children  come  with  a 
pail  to  get  water  from  this  sweet  spring.  The 
water  in  their  own  wells  is  bad  this  summer  and 
if  they  drink  it,  it  would  make  them  sick,  but 
my  water  is  pure  and  healthful. 

So  the  first  good  deed  I  do  is  to  give  water  to 
the  little  children. 

Just  a  few  rods  below  this  spring  is  a  low 


92  Nature's  Children 

moist  spot  and  here  the  ground  is  covered  with 
violets.  So  thick  they  stand  that  there  is  hardly 
room  for  any  more.  I  call  them  my  violets,  for 
without  me  to  make  the  spot  wet  they  could  not 
live. 

Every  day  other  children  come  to  pick  my 
violets  and  send  them  away  to  little  waifs  in  the 
city  who  never  see  real  wild  violets  growing 
by  the  brook. 

Further  on  in  this  same  pasture  are  cowslips. 
They  hang  over  my  bank  and  their  golden 
cups  are  reflected  in  the  water.  The  cowslips 
also  could  not  live  if  I  did  not  give  them  water  to 
drink,  for  they  are  very  thirsty  flowers. 

A  poor  boy  whose  mother  has  to  take  in  wash- 
ing to  pay  the  rent  comes  each  day  to  pick  my 
cowslips  for  their  dinner. 

The  next  field  that  I  come  to  is  a  meadow, 
and  here  the  grass  stands  thick  and  tall.  The 
farmer  says  that  it  is  all  my  work,  and  that  his 
grass  would  not  be  half  as  good  as  it  is  if  it  were 
not  for  me. 

The  next  man  whose  fields  I  flow  through 
has  made  me  help  him  in  still  another  way,  for 


THE  BROOK 


94  Nature's  Children 

he  has  made  a  duck  pond  which  I  keep  filled  for 
him.  He  has  left  one  little  place  where  I  can 
flow  through  when  I  have  filled  the  pond,  and 
for  this 'I  am  very  thankful. 

Every  day  the  ducks  and  geese  come  down  to 
the  pond  to  swim  and  to  feed  on  water-grasses. 

It  is  a  pretty  sight  to  see  a  brood  of  little  duck- 
lings or  goslings,  which  are  only  a  day  or  two  old, 
come  toddling  down  to  the  pond  to  swim.  They 
do  not  have  to  be  taught,  but  just  wade  right  in 
and  swim  the  first  time.  They  are  as  cute  as 
they  can  be,  with  their  little  round  downy  bodies, 
their  short  tails  and  their  tiny  red-webbed  feet. 

When  a  duck  wants  to  reach  some  grass  that 
is  under  water,  it  just  stands  upon  its  head  with 
half  its  body  in  the  water  to  reach  it.  It  is  not 
long  before  these  tiny  ducklings  learn  to  feed 
in  this  way. 

After  I  leave  this  farmer's  field  I  flow  through 
another  meadow.  Here  there  are  lots  of  cat- 
tails, and  sweet  flag.  The  children  come  and 
pick  the  cattails  to  put  up  in  the  house  for  orna- 
ments, but  the  sweet  flag  root  they  dig  and  make 
into  a  kind  of  candy,  which  is  very  nice. 


Nature's  Children  95 

Farther  on  there  is  a  boy  who  has  made  a  fine 
dam  across  my  course  and  put  in  a  water  wheel. 

I  like  to  rash  down  his  trough  and  make  the 
little  wheel  spin  round,  because  it  pleases  the 
boy,  and  it  is  always  good  to  make  people  happy. 

Next  I  flow  through  a  large  swamp  and  here 
there  are  many  pond  lilies.  How  fragrant  the  air 
is  when  these  lilies  are  in  bloom!  This  is  about 
the  first  of  July.  The  pond  lilies  also  could  not 
live  without  me,  so  I  call  them  mine,  and  when 
people  come  and  pick  them  and  tell  how  sweet 
they  are  I  feel  very  proud,  because  I  have  helped 
them  to  grow. 

It  is  not  until  I  have  flowed  a  mile  or  so,  that 
my  first  hard  task  begins.  Here  men  have 
built  a  long  strong  dam  and  made  me  work. 

When  the  dam  was  first  built  it  made  me  very 
angry  to  be  held.  I  knew  that  the  fields  and 
meadows  below  would  miss  me  if  I  did  not 
hurry  and  come  to  them.  It  might  have  taken 
me  a  week  or  two  to  have  filled  the  dam,  but 
fortunately  a  hard  rain  came  at  just  the  right 
time,  and  the  dam  was  filled  in  two  or  three  days 
and  I  went  on  my  way  rejoicing. 


96  Nature's  Children 

But  a  part  of  my  current  always  has  to  flow 
through  a  long  spout  and  then  make  the  water- 
wheel  spin  round  and  round  before  it  is  free  to 
go  on  its  way. 

At  first  I  thought  it  a  great  hardship  to  have 
to  turn  the  miller's  wheel  all  day  long,  but  finally 
I  understood  what  good  I  was  doing,  and  then 
I  was  glad.  If  I  worked  hard  for  the  miller 
he  could  grind  the  corn  and  the  wheat  so  that 
children  for  many  miles  around  could  have  food 
to  eat.  Further  on,  there  was  also  another  mill 
which  makes  cloth  to  keep  people  warm,  and 
here  I  also  help. 

So  you  see  I  am  very  useful.  I  water  the 
cattle  each  day  in  a  hundred  pastures,  I  turn  the 
mill-wheels  and  make  cloth  and  grind  grain. 
I  keep  the  fields  fresh  and  green  and  often  water 
the  farmer's  crops. 

I  give  men  and  boys  fishing  and  swimming 
and  wading  and  so  help  to  keep  them  clean. 

As  for  myself,  I  am  always  pure  and  sweet  as 
a  little  brook  should  be,  so  that  people  can  drink 
of  my  sweet  water  and  know  that  I  am  good. 


XIII 

WHAT  THE   LITTLE   FOXES   MUST 
KNOW 

If  there  is  an  animal  in  the  whole  wilderness 
who  lives  by  his  wits,  and  his  wits  alone,  that 
animal  is  the  fox. 

Any  of  the  rodents  or  gnawing  animals  can 
find  natural  food  almost  anywhere,  but  Reynard, 
who  is  a  meat  eater,  must  hunt  for  his  living,  and 
sometimes  if  his  hunting  was  not  tempered  with 
the  greatest  wisdom  and  cunning,  he  would  go 
hungry. 

The  fox  is  too  large  to  follow  his  prey  into 
its  burrow  or  other  hiding  place,  as  the  weasel 
does,  so  he  must  take  his  game  in  the  open  by 
great  cunning  and  patience. 

When  the  little  kit-foxes  first  waddle  out  of 
the  den  after  their  mother,  they  are  probably 

eight  or  nine  weeks  old  and  among  the  prettiest 

97 


98  Nature's  Children 

of  the  forest  babies.  They  are  a  reddish  yellow, 
nearly  always  lighter  colored  than  their  mother, 
with  very  pointed  noses,  bright  yellow,  gleaming 
eyes,  and  queer  bushy  tails. 

Their  actions  are  in  nearly  all  ways  those  of  a 
mature  fox.  If  they  do  not  inherit  these  habits 
they  soon  form  them  by  imitating  their  mother. 

They  are  naturally  cunning,  alert  and  quick 
to  learn. 

One  of  the  first  lessons  they  are  taught  is  to 
get  to  the  hole.  They  will  all  be  playing  about 
just  like  small  puppies,  having  the  finest  kind  of 
a  time,  when  their  mother  will  suddenly  hurry 
them  into  the  den  most  unceremoniously,  nipping 
at  them  behind  and  showing  her  teeth  if  they  do 
not  hurry.  This  lesson  is  repeated  several 
times  until  at  the  slightest  sign  from  her  they  will 
hustle  into  the  den  in  the  liveliest  manner. 

When  this  is  once  learned  the  little  foxes 
think  it  great  fun  and  they  will  scurry  into  the 
hole  at  the  top  of  their  speed  to  see  which  can 
be  first  inside. 

Then  the  mother  fox  will  leave  them  at  the 
entrance  of  the  den  and  at  play,  telling  them 


Yob  Nature's  Children 

that  she  is  going  hunting  and  that  if  they  hea 
any  noise  they  must  flee  into  the  den  with  al 
possible  speed.     Then  she  will  go  a  little  ways 
into  the  bushes,  but  will  soon  return  unknown 
to  the  little  foxes  and  make  a  slight  noise  to  see 
if  her  directions  are  obeyed.     If  they  all  scurry 
in  quickly,  all  is  well,  but  if  any  disobey  and 
linger  outside  to  see  what  the  strange  noise  is, 
his  mother  will  bound  from  the  bushes  and  the 
youngster  will  wish  that  he  had  minded. 

The  mother  fox  next  seeks  to  arouse  the  hunt- 

ng  and  killing  instinct  in  the  young  Reynards, 

for  you  must  remember  that  it  is  by  killing  that 

all  of  the   carnivorous  or  meat-eating  animals 

live. 

Perhaps  she  brings  a  live  mouse  for  them  to 
torment  and  kill,  but  more  likely  it  is  a  frog. 
Frogs  are  easy  to  catch,  and  they  make  a  good 
plaything  for  young  foxes.  When  they  have 
learned  so  that  they  will  kill  a  frog,  or  a  mouse, 
perhaps  they  are  allowed  to  hunt  grasshoppers 
or  crickets  in  the  grass  and  weeds  near  the 
mouth  of  the  den.  These  they  will  creep  after 
in  the  grass,  finally  pouncing  on  them  and  killing 


Nature's  Children 


them.  The  young  foxes'  real  hunting  does  not 
begin,  however,  until  some  moonlight  night 
when  they  are  taken  to  the  meadow  and  taught 
to  catch  mice.  Field  mice  are  one  of  the  foxes' 
chief  articles  of  diet.  He  can  always  find  them 
and  they  are  tender  and  to  his  liking. 

On  these  bright  moonlight  nights  the  mice  are 
running  about  in  their  tunnels  in  the  roots  of  the 
grass,  squeaking  and  having  the  finest  kind  of  a 
time  at  play.  The  fox  will  take  his  position  by 
the  tunnel  which  he  can  discern  by  the  smell,  and 
there  he  will  watch,  standing  as  still  as  a  statue 
for  an  hour  if  the  mouse  does  not  come  his  way 
sooner.  Then  he  will  see  a  little  tremor  in  the 
grass,  and  perhaps  his  quick  ears  have  heard  a 
slight  squeak  that  you  or  I  would  not  have 
noticed;  then  he  is  all  attention.  When  the 
movement  in  the  grass  gets  close  enough,  he 
pounces  upon  the  spot  and  presses  the  grass 
down  on  both  sides  of  the  mouse  so  that  he 
cannot  run  in  either  direction.  When  he  digs 
him  out,  there  is  a  pitiful  little  squeak  and  the 
mouse  has  made  a  beginning  for  a  hungry  fox's 
supper. 


Nature's  Children 

When  the  young  foxes  have  become  proficient 
in  mice-catching,  they  are  given  something 
larger  to  kill. 

Perhaps  the  mother  or  father  fox  brings  home 
a  live  woodchuck  and  calling  the  young  foxes 
forth  from  the  den  they  set  the  woodchuck  loose 
in  their  midst. 

If  this  is  the  case,  the  probability  is  that  some 
one  of  the  youngsters  will  get  badly  bitten  before 
the  old  woodchuck  is  killed.  But  the  mother 
is  always  standing  by,  and  if  the  woodchuck 
proves  too  much  for  the  whelps,  she  will  step 
in  and  finish  him,  but  usually  the  young  foxes 
will  worry  the  woodchuck  and  finally  kill  him. 

(If  they  get  bitten  they  do  not  mind,  for  that 
is  a  part  of  the  game.) 

Next,  perhaps,  they  are  set  to  watch  at  the 
entrance  of  a  rabbit  burrow  or  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree  where  the  mother  knows  that  a  chipmunk 
has  his  winter  store  laid  up. 

Maybe  some  bright  night  the  mother  fox  goes 
away  leaving  the  youngsters  to  hunt  mice  in  the 
meadows  while  she  tries  a  more  hazardous  game. 
If  she  is  successful,  she  will  return  with  a  hen 


LITTLE  FOXES 


io4  Nature's  Children 

or  chicken  slung  over  her  shoulder,  and  the  young 
Reynards  will  be  given  a  delicious  feast. 

When  the  first  frosts  toughen  the  young  foxes' 
skins  and  make  them  worth  the  taking,  their 
more  serious  lessons  begin.  These  that  have 
gone  before  have  been  mere  play. 

Then,  if  it  is  possible,  the  old  fox  shows  the 
youngsters  a  trap  nicely  baited.  Probably  the 
young  foxes  are  all  eagerness  and  their  tails  will 
wag,  and  their  eyes  gleam  at  the  sight  of  the  bait, 
but  the  wise  old  fox  drives  them  away,  biting 
at  them  savagely  and  showing  them  in  every 
possible  way  that  this  thing  with  the  metal  smell 
is  always  to  be  avoided. 

Perhaps  some  morning  when  the  hoar  frost  is 
white  on  the  grass  by  the  brook  there  comes  the 
baying  of  a  foxhound.  Then  the  wise  old  fox 
teaches  the  youngsters  about  the  chase,  and 
finally  tells  them  that  whatever  else  they  do  to 
get  away,  they  must  not  hole  in  the  home  den, 
which  might  end  in  having  the  whole  litter  dug 
out  to  perish  miserably. 

Maybe  this  very  morning  they  hear  the  roar  of 
the  thunderstick,  if  so,  the  mother  will  put  her 


Nature's  Children  105 

tail  between  her  legs  and  lead  them  in  a  break- 
neck run  out  of  the  country,  showing  them  by  her 
example  that  this  is  one  of  their  greatest  dangers. 
As  the  season  advances,  they  learn  to  baffle 
the  hounds,  and  to  play  at  the  desperate  game  of 
chance  as  only  a  fox  can. 


XIV 

NEST  BABIES 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  time  of  the 
whole  year  in  Bird-land  is  the  time  when  the 
fledglings  are  hatched  and  the  life  of  the  new 
family  begins. 

You  children  could  hardly  guess,  without  you 
have  often  watched  the  birds,  what  patience 
it  has  taken  to  bring  this  little  bird-family  into 
the  world. 

In  the  first  place  it  took  days  to  build  the 
nest.  Perhaps  the  first  nest  was  destroyed  by 
the  wind  or  bad  boys,  so  a  second  may  have 
been  built.  After  the  nest  was  finally  built, 
with  much  planning  by  the  parent  birds,  the 
eggs  had  to  be  laid;  this  usually  takes  a  day  for 
an  egg,  but  some  birds  skip  a  day  between  each 

egg- 

After  all  the  eggs  were  laid  the  mother  bird 

1 06 


NEST  BABIES 


I08  Nature's  Children 

had  to  sit  upon  them  for  about  three  weeks  before 
her  patience  was  rewarded  by  seeing  a  small 
spot  pecked  in  each  egg. 

Think  how  hard  it  would  be  for  you  children 
who  like  to  wriggle  about  to  sit  perfectly  still, 
just  as  the  mother  bird  has  to,  on  the  eggs  for 
two  or  three  weeks. 

After  the  fledglings  are  finally  hatched  there 
is  great  activity  in  the  family  for  many  days. 
Most  of  the  little  birds  stay  in  the  nest  for  several 
weeks,  but  little  partridges  and  quail  are  an 
exception  to  this  rule,  for  they  are  among  the 
brightest  and  hardiest  of  chicks,  and  in  a  very 
few  hours  after  being  hatched  they  are  picking 
up  their  own  living  just  as  if  they  had  always 
worked  for  it. 

But  this  is  not  the  case  with  most  young 
birds.  Young  herons  stay  in  the  nest  and  are 
fed  by  the  old  herons  until  they  are  nearly 
grown. 

It  is  a  pleasant  sight  to  see  those  wide  open 
mouths  go  up  at  the  slightest  sound  near  the 
nest.  Most  of  these  ugly  naked  little  birds  are 
greedy  and  take  a  great  deal  of  feeding.  I  have 


Nature's  Children  109 

seen  old  robins  carrying  worms  to  their  young 
nearly  all  day  long. 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  fledgling  that  was 
hatched  in  a  hole  in  the  ground  ?  Well,  that  is 
where  the  young  kingfisher  is  hatched. 

When  a  pair  of  kingfishers  want  to  build 
themselves  a  nest  they  dig  a  hole  back  into 
some  sandy  bank  for  several  feet;  and  at  the 
end  of  it  they  hollow  out  a  round  place  and  line 
it  with  fish  bones. 

Here  in  darkness  the  young  kingfishers  are 
hatched. 

Young  kingfishers  are  among  the  hungriest 
of  fledglings,  and  when  there  is  a  large  family 
you  may  see  the  old  birds  fishing  for  these  wide- 
open  mouths  all  day  long. 

Some  birds,  like  the  kingfisher,  digest  the 
food  for  their  young  before  feeding  it  to  them. 
They  first  swallow  the  food  themselves,  and 
when  it  has  become  soft  they  gulp  it  up  and  feed 
it  to  the  young  birds. 

Most  little  birds  when  they  are  first  hatched 
are  rather  ugly,  shapeless  little  things  without 
any  feathers. 


no  Nature's  Children 

Young  bluebirds  feather  out  very  early,  but 
the  queer  thing  about  them  is,  that  they  are 
black  as  little  crows,  and  it  is  not  until  they  have 
been  out  of  the  nest  for  some  time  that  they  put 
on  the  blue  and  red  of  their  parents. 

The  cuckoo  also  has  a  queer  family  of  fledg- 
lings. This  sly  bird  is  very  slow  about  laying 
her  eggs,  for  she  sometimes  takes  a  week  to  an 
egg,  so  that  the  first  cuckoo  is  hatched  out  long 
before  his  brothers  and  sisters.  So  a  cuckoo's 
nest  will  usually  contain  birds  of  several  sizes. 
There  will  be  one  little  naked  cuckoo  just  hatched, 
another  a  week  old,  and  perhaps  one  just  ready 
to  go  out  into  the  world  and  pick  up  his  own 
living. 

There  is  one  bird  who  is  quite  shiftless  about 
her  young.  In  fact,  she  has  nothing  to  do  with 
them  after  she  lays  her  eggs. 

This  is  the  cowbird,  who  goes  about  laying 
her  eggs  in  other  birds'  nests.  When  the  other 
birds  find  a  cowbird  has  laid  an  egg  in  their 
nest  they  usually  hatch  it  out  and  take  care  of 
the  young  bird  along  with  their  own. 

The  young  cowbird  is  a  greedy  fellow,  and  it 


Nature's  Children  in 

greatly  surprises  its  foster  mother,  who  wonders 
why  one  of  her  brood  is  so  greedy  and  so  much 
larger  than  the  rest  of  her  family. 

Most  old  birds  teach  their  young  to  fly,  show- 
ing them  by  example  how  the  trick  is  done, 
and  often  with  holding  food  to  coax  them  to  try 
their  wings. 

An  old  robin  will  frequently  sit  upon  a  limb 
holding  a  tempting  worm  in  its  bill,  while  the 
young  robin  perches  upon  a  limb  near  by  winking 
and  blinking  and  wishing  so  much  that  he  had 
that  worm,  but  not  daring  for  a  long  time  to 
fly  to  his  parent  and  get  it. 

When  the  young  birds  first  go  forth  from 
the  nest  is  a  time  of  peril  to  the  family,  for  there 
is  always  a  chance  that  some  luckless  bird  will 
flop  down  on  the  grass  and  the  cat  will  get 
it.  If  it  is  not  the  cat,  sometimes  thoughtless 
children  will  injure  young  birds,  and  some 
other  birds  will  even  kill  the  fledglings  of  their 
neighbors. 

Hawks,  shrikes,  kingbirds,  crows  and  others 
often  rob  nests  of  their  young  birds  and  still 
more  frequently  steal  the  eggs  before  they  are 


ii2  Nature's  Children 

hatched.  This  is  very  wicked  of  them,  but  they 
do  not  know  better  and  all  of  them  do  it  for  food, 
but  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  boy  or  girl  who 
injures  young  birds  or  steals  birds'  eggs. 

Once  the  young  birds  leave  the  nest  they 
never  return,  but  are  pushed  out  into  the  world 
to  shift  for  themselves. 

It  is  surprising  how  quickly  they  learn  what 
things  are  good  for  food  and  which  things  to 
let  alone.  They  are  never  deceived  into  eating 
poison  foods,  as  children  often  are. 

Nature  has  given  each  young  bird  such  know- 
ledge as  he  needs  to  take  care  of  himself  in 
the  great  world  into  which  he  has  come.  Each 
bird  has  in  its  little  head  such  wisdom  as  will 
enable  it  to  build  its  nest  and  rear  its  young 
when  the  time  comes.  Also  there  is  a  thought 
in  the  bird's  head  that  will  lead  him  many  miles 
away,  when  the  cold  comes,  to  warmer  climes, 
where  he  will  not  perish  from  the  cold. 

The  little  bird  loves  the  sunshine  and  the 
warmth  and  plenty  of  good  things  to  eat.  When 
he  has  all  these  things,  what  a  pleasant  com- 
panion for  man  he  is!  How  his  song  gladdens 


Nature's  Children  113 

the   earth,   and   how   his   bright   feathers   cheer 
us  as  they  flash  by! 

Let  us  then  feed  and  protect  these  little  friends 
and  encourage  them  to  build  about  our  houses, 
for  it  is  a  great  thing  to  have  the  full  confidence 
of  even  a  little  bird. 


XV 
SOME  BIRD-LAND  ROMANCES 

Little  Stout-heart  and  Mr.  Fine-feathers 
both  came  to  my  home  the  same  day.  If  I 
remember  rightly  it  was  the  seventh  of  May. 

They  were  two  male  Baltimore  orioles,  and  I 
noticed  at  once  that  there  was  some  kind  of 
rivalry  between  them.  This  was  explained 
three  or  four  days  later  when  a  dainty  female 
Baltimore  oriole  appeared  and  the  two  male 
birds  began  making  love  to  her  at  the  same 
time. 

It  was  the  old,  old  story  of  rival  suitors.  Prob- 
ably both  had  begun  courtship  several  days 
before  in  the  sunny  south,  and  the  wayward 
lady  bird  had  not  been  able  to  make  up  her 
mind.  So  finally  the  lovers  had  gone  north  to 
search  for  summer  quarters,  and  the  thing  had 
not  been  settled.  There  had  probably  been 

scrapping  about  it  all  the  vv^y  from  Maryland  to 
114 


THE  BALTIMORE  ORIOLE 


n6  Nature's  Children 

Massachusetts,  but  all  of  the  oriole's  battles  are 
bloodless,  and  merely  consist  of  bluster  and 
scolding,  with  an  occasional  feeble  attempt  at 
real  fighting. 

It  was  impossible  for  me  to  tell  which  of  the 
suitors  the  female  oriole  favored.  But  I  ought 
not  to  be  expected  to  know  the  mind  of  a  bird 
who  did  not  know  her  own. 

Little  Stout-heart  was  the  most  attentive,  but 
Mr.  Fine-feathers  was  a  wonderfully  brilliant 
bird  and  a  fine  singer,  and  I  saw  plainly  that  the 
coquettish  oriole  was  attracted  by  his  fine  feathers. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  his  plumage  would 
have  won  the  day,  just  as  fine  feathers  often  do, 
had  not  something  happened  that  quite  changed 
things.  I  think  that  it  was  about  as  good  as 
settled,  for  Mrs. Oriole  had  begun  her  nest  while 
Mr.  Fine-feathers  was  singing  triumphantly, 
but  poor  little  Stout-heart  fluttered  about  sad 
and  uncertain. 

Finally,  in  the  course  of  the  nest  building  Mrs. 
Oriole  discovered  a  fine  string  that  she  at  once 
saw  was  just  the  thing  with  which  to  hang  the 
nest  to  a  limb  in  the  old  elm.  She  was  so  pleased 


Nature's  Children  117 

and  excited  that  she  did  not  notice  my  telephone 
wire  and  so  flew  against  it,  while  carrying  the 
long  string  in  her  bill. 

She  hovered  a  moment  in  midair  as  though 
trying  to  regain  her  senses,  and  then  fluttered 
down  to  earth. 

I  saw  the  accident  and  was  about  to  go  to  her 
assistance  when,  quick  as  a  flash,  that  ruthless 
hunter,  the  house  cat,  pounced  upon  her. 

I  cried  out  for  pussy  to  desist,  but  a  cat  rarely 
gives  up  anything  that  it  has  once  gotten  its 
jaws  upon  and  in  another  minute  Mrs.  Oriole's 
fate  would  have  been  sealed,  had  not  a  valiant 
little  knight-errant  flown  to  the  rescue. 

There  was  a  flash  like  a  golden  sunbeam  falling 
through  the  leaves  and  little  Stout-heart  was 
darting  viciously  at  the  cat's  eyes,  pecking  and 
striking  with  his  wings  more  savagely  than  I  had 
imagined  that  an  oriole  could  strike. 

Pussy's  astonishment  was  probably  as  great 
as  mine,  for  she  loosed  her  hold  for  a  second  upon 
her  victim  and  in  that  instant  the  prisoner  es- 
caped, and  both  she  and  her  deliverer  flew  up 
into  the  old  elm  far  out  of  the  cat's  reach. 


Nature's  Children 


When  it  was  all  over,  Mr.  Fine-feathers  came 
fluttering  about  pouring  out  glad  notes,  but  his 
wife  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him.  To- 
gether she  and  Stout-heart  set  upon  Fine-feathers 
and  drove  him  away  from  the  premises,  and  I 
did  not  see  him  again  that  morning. 

This  act  of  heroism  upon  the  part  of  little 
Stout-heart,  won  the  female  oriole's  heart  for 
him  and  he  and  she  reared  their  young  and 
were  happy  after  their  kind. 

Mr.  Fine-feathers  stayed  about  for  a  few 
days,  but  finally  seeing  that  he  had  lost  his  wife 
for  good,  sought  a  new  mate  elsewhere. 

The  same  Spring,  a  few  days  later,  Sir  Cuckoo 
came  to  the  old  butternut  tree  in  the  front  yard 
to  eat  hairy  caterpillars. 

The  cuckoo  is  a  rather  shy  bird,  so  that 
although  you  may  hear  his  plaintive  cuckoo  over 
and  over,  again  and  again,  still  you  rarely  see  him. 

For  an  hour  or  two  he  amused  himself  eating 
the  caterpillars  just  as  a  well-behaved  cuckoo 
should,  but  finally  caught  sight  of  a  robin's  nest 
in  a  nearby  apple-tree  and  then  a  very  wicked 
thought  came  into  his  head. 


Nature's  Children  119 

"Why  should  I  spend  my  whole  life  eating 
caterpillars?"  he  thought;  "especially  the  hairy 
kind  that  other  birds  will  hardly  touch  ?  It  is 
all  right  to  be  a  benefit  to  man,  and  help  him  by 
eating  up  these  miserable  old  caterpillars,  but  I 
wane  something  different. " 

Sir  Cuckoo  had  seen  a  crow  robbing  a  bird's 
nest  a  day  or  two  before,  and  he  thought  it  great 
fun  to  hear  the  old  birds'  frightened  and  angry 
cries.  To  be  sure,  he  did  tremble  for  a  moment 
for  his  own  nest,  but  he  did  not  think  the  crow 
would  find  it. 

Sir  Cuckoo  wondered  what  was  in  the  robin's 
nest  in  the  apple-tree  nearby,  so  he  flew  over  to 
see. 

Neither  of  the  birds  were  at  home,  and  the 
nest  contained  five  eggs,  as  blue  as  heaven,  and 
much  handsomer  than  Mrs.  Cuckoo's  eggs. 

Sir  Cuckoo  perched  upon  the  edge  of  the 
nest  and  for  a  moment  amused  himself  by  turning 
the  eggs  over  with  his  bill  and  then  he  struck 
one  of  them  a  sharp  rap  and  pierced  the  shell. 

Then  he  deliberately  sucked  out  the  inside, 
and  dropped  the  empty  shell  upon  the  ground. 


120  Nature's  Children 

It  was  fine,  much  better  than  caterpillars,  so 
he  ate  the  second  egg  and  its  shell  followed  the 
first.  He  was  just  finishing  the  third  when 
there  came  a  chorus  of  angry  cries,  and  before 
Sir  Cuckoo  knew  it,  both  of  the  robins  were  upon 
him. 

Before  he  had  time  to  flee  Mr.  Robin  had 
alighted  upon  his  back  and  was  beating  away  at 
the  back  of  his  head,  and  Mrs.  Robin  was  peck- 
ing at  his  eyes  with  might  and  main. 

Fluttering,  striking,  squeaking  and  squawling, 
all  three  went  down  upon  the  ground. 

The  robins  were  plainly  too  much  for  Sir 
Cuckoo.  But  since  he  had  been  caught  fairly, 
with  the  plunder  in  his  mouth,  I  did  not  feel 
justified  in  taking  his  part.  He  must  suffer  the 
consequences  of  his  sin  whatever  they  might  be. 

In  thirty  seconds'  time  che  two  robins  had  so 
beaten  and  pecked  the  thief  that  he  lay  motion- 
less on  the  ground.  When  they  had  satisfied 
themselves  that  he  could  no  longer  flutter,  they 
flew  up  to  the  nearly  empty  nest,  making  a  great 
ado  about  their  loss. 

I  went  out  and  picked  up  the  motionless  cuckoo 


122  Nature's  Children 

and  to  my  great  astonishment  found  that  he  was 
quite  dead. 

Down  in  the  swamp,  in  an  alder  thicket, 
perched  the  nine-killer,  or  butcher-bird,  watching 
and  waiting  for  prey. 

A  few  rods  away  was  a  thorn-apple  bush  upon 
which  he  had  already  impaled  two  forest 
warblers  this  morning. 

He  was  not  a  large  bird,  about  the  size  of  a 
robin.  He  was  slate-colored  above,  and  rather 
lighter  below,  with  black  wings  which  were 
conspicuous  when  he  flew.  His  beak  was  sharp 
and  hooked  and  his  talons  were  hooked  and 
strong,  much  like  those  of  the  sparrow  hawk. 

Of  all  birds  of  prey,  he  is  the  most  cruel  and 
persistent  in  his  hunting.  His  name  of  nine- 
killer  is  given  him  because  he  usually  catches 
nine  small  birds  and  impales  them  upon  some 
thorn  bush,  or  barbed  wire  fence,  much  as  the 
barbarians  of  old  did  with  their  prisoners  of 
war. 

Occasionally  this  merciless  hunter  would  give 
slight  bird  notes  imitating  as  wrell  as  he  could  the 
notes  of  small  birds,  so  that  his  prey  might  think 


Nature's  Children  123 

that  the  bush  was  inhabited  by  some  of  their 
kind  and  be  trapped  to  doom. 

He  had  been  sitting  quietly  for  some  time, 
when  along  came  a  slight  grasshopper  sparrow. 
Ah,  here  is  a  titbit,  thought  the  nine-killer  and 
he  waited  until  the  sparrow  was  close  by  his 
place  of  hiding  and  then  darted  out  at  him. 

There  was  a  quick  series  of  frightened  twitters 
and  the  butcher-bird  wrapped  his  strong  claws 
about  the  sparrow  and  flew  away  with  him  to 
the  thorn  bush. 

He  was  so  excited  with  his  own  game  that  he 
did  not  notice  a  swift  shadow  that  followed  him, 
or  the  steely-blue  bird  that  flew  just  above  him. 

As  he  slackened  his  pace  and  hovered  above  the 
thorn  bush  preparing  to  spear  his  victim,  there  was 
a  flutter  of  wings  above  him  and  a  set  of  claws, 
stronger  and  sharper  than  his  own,  gripped  him. 

With  a  cry  of  alarm  he  loosed  his  hold  upon  the 
grasshopper  sparrow,  which  flew  quickly  away, 
but  the  nine-killer's  fate  was  sealed,  for  the 
talons  of  pigeon  hawk  were  buried  deep  in  his 
neck  and  they  did  not  lose  their  grip  until  life 
had  left  him. 


XVI 
FURRED  AND  FEATHERED  FISHERMEN 

If  the  boy  who  loves  to  take  his  trout  pole 
and  follow  the  brook  for  trout,  imagines  that 
he  is  the  only  fisherman  in  the  world,  he  is  quite 
mistaken.  Man  is  not  the  only  fisherman,  for 
there  are  innumerable  birds  and  animals  that 
are  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  good  fishermen  as  he. 

Even  upon  the  little  brook  that  the  boy  calls 
his  very  own,  he  is  not  the  only  fisherman.  Do 
you  not  know  the  kingfisher  —  that  queer  bird 
who  builds  his  nest  in  a  hole  in  the  bank  ?  He 
too  is  a  fisherman.  Some  day  you  will  see  him 
sitting  upon  a  limb  of  a  tree  that  overhangs  the 
water.  He  is  watching  the  stream  intently. 
He  sits  as  still  as  though  he  were  a  wooden  bird, 
but  he  is  very  much  alive,  as  you  will  presently 
see. 

Soon  a  minnow  will  come  swimming  leisurely 

along.     Flash!     The  kingfisher  falls  like  a  blue 
124 


THE  KINGFISHER 


126  Nature's  Children 

streak  and  goes  under  the  water  with  a  great 
splash.  If  he  is  successful  you  will  see  a  minnow 
in  his  beak,  when  he  comes  up,  but  it  will  not  be 
there  long,  for  he  will  swallow  it  before  you  know 
where  it  has  gone.  Then  he  will  go  back  upon 
the  same  limb  and  watch  for  another  fish. 

On  the  larger  streams  you  will  see  the  osprey, 
who  is  the  American  fishhawk,  catching  fish. 
The  osprey  is  a  fine  majestic  bird,  looking 
something  like  a  very  large  hen  hawk.  You 
will  see  him  flying  leisurely  along  over  the  lake, 
when  suddenly  he  will  stop  in  mid  air,  giving 
just  motion  enough  to  his  wings  to  keep  his 
balance.  A  moment  he  will  hang  there  in  the 
air,  and  then  he  will  fall  like  a  thunderbolt. 
He  will  go  under  the  water  out  of  sight  and  if  he 
is  successful  a  fish  will  be  dangling  from  his 
claws  when  he  appears.  He  catches  his  fish  in 
his  talons,  while  the  kingfisher  catches  his  in 
his  beak. 

Another  fisherman  is  the  great  American  blue 
heron.  A  tall,  queer-looking  bird,  who  has  such 
long  legs  that  he  looks  as  though  he  were  on 
stilts.  You  will  see  him  walking  gravely  along 


Nature's  Children  127 

the  banks  of  the  pond  or  stream.  He  will  use 
great  caution,  taking  up  his  foot  and  putting  it 
down  noiselessly,  for  he  does  not  wish  to  frighten 
his  fish.  When  he  reaches  a  position  where  he 
thinks  the  fish  are  likely  to  swim  he  will  stand 
perfectly  still,  his  head  drawn  back  between  his 
shoulders  in  readiness  to  strike.  He  will  often 
stand  in  one^ position  for  half  an  hour.  By  and 
by  his  patience  will  be  rewarded,  and  his  head 
will  shoot  out  like  a  flash,  and  he  will  bring  it 
up  with  a  perch  firmly  speared  on  his  long  beak. 

The  blue  heron  is  also  a  great  frog  catcher. 
When  he  has  caught  half  a  dozen  frogs  he  will 
lay  them  down  upon  the  grass  with  their  legs 
crossing.  Then  he  will  bite  upon  the  place 
where  they  cross  and  in  this  way  hold  them  all, 
when  he  will  fly  away  with  frogs  dangling  from 
both  sides  of  his  beak. 

But  there  are  also  animals  who  are  as  good 
fishermen  as  the  birds.  The  very  best  of  all 
these  is  the  otter.  This  animal  is  so  good  a 
fisherman  that  in  China  he  is  trained  to  fish  for 
his  master,  after  being  caught  and  tamed. 

The  otter  is  a  long,  sleek  animal  weighing 


128  Nature's  Children 

about  forty  pounds.     His   coat  is   smooth  and 
very  warm,  and  is  highly  prized  as  fur. 

The  otter  slips  quietly  into  the  water,  never 
making  a  splash  to  frighten  his  fish,  or  maybe, 
he  will  lie  upon  a  rock  in  the  middle  of  the  stream. 
When  he  at  last  sees  the  fish  that  he  wants,  he 
starts  after  it  like  a  black  streak.  The  otter 
is  the  swiftest  swimmer  of  all  quadrupeds,  and 
it  is  rarely  that  a  fish  can  escape  him.  If  the 
fish  can  get  under  a  rock,  or  into  some  small  hole, 
perhaps  he  may  get  away,  but  if  it  cannot  find  a 
hiding  place  it  will  be  caught. 

There  are  other  four-footed  fishermen,  but 
most  of  them  fish  by  stealth,  and  do  not  try  to 
beat  the  fish  at  its  own  game  as  the  otter  does. 

The  raccoon  is  a  good  fisherman,  and  you  will 
see  him  on  a  moonlight  night,  bending  patiently 
over  some  pool  in  the  brook  watching  with 
eager  eyes.  When  a  sucker  or  perch  comes  his 
way  his  paw  will  shoot  out  like  a  flash,  and,  if 
he  is  successful,  the  fish  will  land  upon  the  bank, 
when  he  will  pounce  upon  it. 

The  raccoon  is  really  a  little  brother  to  the 
bear.  He  walks  and  acts  like  a  bear,  and  he 


Nature's  Children  129 

sleeps  in  the  winter  just  as  the  bear  does.  So 
you  will  not  be  surprised  when  I  tell  you  that  the 
bear  is  a  fisherman  too. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  see  Bruin  up 
in  the  great  woods  of  Canada  bending  above  a 
pool  watching  intently  for  trout.  You  would 
hardly  think  that  he  could  catch  a  fish,  but  wait 
until  a  grasshopper  falls  upon  the  surface  of 
the  water  near  the  bear  and  a  trout  rises  to  catch 
it.  The  great  bear's  paw  will  shoot  out  and  a 
trout,  that  any  fisherman  might  envy  him,  will 
fly  into  the  bushes. 

The  wildcat  and  the  lynx,  two  great  cats 
found  in  the  northern  wilderness,  are  also  good 
fishermen,  taking  their  fish  just  as  Bruin 
does.  All  of  the  cat  tribe  dislike  to  wet  their  feet 
and  if  any  of  the  great  cats  had  to  go  into  the 
water  for  fish  they  would  go  without  it.  The 
mink  destroys  more  fish  than  he  cares  to  eat,  for 
he  is  small  and  stealthy  and  can  swim  like  a  snake. 

So  you  see  the  boy  is  not  the  only  fisherman 
in  the  world.  Many  of  the  furred  and  feathered 
folks  take  fish,  and  some  of  them  do  it  very 
cleverly. 


XVII 
HOW  THE  BIRDS  HELP  THE  FARMER 

I  am  sure  that  it  will  surprise  my  little  readers 
to  know  that  such  small  creatures  as  the  birds 
are  a  help  to  the  farmer,  but  this  is  the  case. 

Perhaps  you  thought  that  the  birds  were  only 
pleasing  as  songsters  to  cheer  us  with  their  glad 
music  and  bright  colors,  but  they  are  most  useful 
as  well. 

In  the  town  where  I  live  the  elm  beetle  and 
the  gypsy  moth  have  been  making  sad  ravages 
upon  the  grand  old  elms  that  line  the  street. 

Many  of  these  elms  are  over  two  hundred 
years  old.  They  were  planted  by  our  ancestors 
and  so  are  very  precious.  During  the  month 
of  July  men  went  up  and  down  through  the 
street  showering  poison  upon  the  trees  with  a 
machine,  that  the  small  beetles  and  moths  might 
eat  it  and  be  killed. 

But  these  men  were  not  the  first  destroyers  of 
130 


Nature's  Children  131 

the  pests  in  the  field,  for  the  latter  part  of  April, 
even  before  the  leaves  were  out,  an  army  of 
birds  were  hard  at  work  destroying  the  enemies 
of  the  trees. 

There  were  robins  and  bluebirds,  nuthatches 
and  chick-a-dees,  song  sparrows  and  Phoebes, 
all  working  with  might  and  main.  Even  the 
noisy,  quarrelsome  English  sparrow  joined  in 
the  hunt.  All  were  chirping  away  gleefully. 

Some  of  the  birds  were  so  expert  that  they 
could  catch  the  moths  and  beetles  on  the  wing. 
As  they  chirruped  and  chattered,  squeaked  and 
twittered,  I  could  imagine  f them  saying,  "Look 
out,  there  he  goes.  Catch  him  quick.  Well, 
I  have  got  this  one/'  and  so  on. 

Just  in  front  of  my  house  is  an  old  butternut 
tree  in  which  the  hairy  caterpillars  have  made 
sad  work.  Quite  frequently  in  the  summer  we 
will  hear  the  plaintive  note  of  the  cuckoo  in  the 
tree  nearly  all  day  long.  I  might  wonder  what 
he  was  doing  there  for  so  long  a  time  if  I  did  not 
know  that  he  was  busy  eating  the  hairy  cater- 
pillar. 

This  is  the  worst  of  all  the  caterpillars  that  do 


132  Nature's  Children 

damage  among  our  trees,  and  the  cuckoo  is  the 
only  bird  that  can  eat  him. 

This  destructive  pest  is  covered  with  short 
bristly  hairs  and  the  poor  cuckoo  gets  his  stomach 
filled  with  them.  Sometimes  when  one  is  killed 
and  his  stomach  is  examined  it  is  found  to  be 
stuck  full  of  these  sharp  caterpillar  hairs. 

If  you  will  examine  the  bark  of  any  tree  that 
is  partly  dead,  you  will  find  that  it  is  full  of  small 
holes.  This  is  the  work  of  the  destructive 
borer  who  goes  up  and  down  boring  holes  not 
only  in  the  bark  of  the  tree,  but  also  in  the  wood- 

There  are  a  lot  of  birds  called  creepers  which 
were  made  on  purpose  to  destroy  the  borer,  I 
imagine.  These  birds  are  the  woodpeckers, 
the  nuthatch,  the  brown  creepers,  the  ruby 
crested  kinglet,  and  several  others. 

You  may  see  them  almost  any  day  going  up 
and  down  upon  the  trunk  and  limbs  of  a  tree 
looking  for  borers.  All  of  these  birds  have 
sharp  bills  that  they  may  pierce  through  the  bark 
and  drill  deep. 

One  of  these  birds  may  even  be  seen  hanging 
head  down  upon  the  bark  of  the  tree.  This 


THE  WHITE-BREASTED  NUTHATCH 


134  Nature's  Children 

is  the  nuthatch.  If  the  bird  goes  around 
and  around  the  tree  spirally  it  is  the  brown 
creeper. 

In  the  winter-time  after  each  snow  you  will 
find  if  you  visit  the  deep  woods  that  it  is  alive 
with  chick-a-dees.  They  were  not  there  yester- 
day and  they  may  be  gone  to-morrow,  but  to-day 
they  are  all  busy  catching  the  aphis,  or  bark 
louse.  You  will  notice  if  you  look,  that  the 
bark  on  nearly  all  the  trees  is  fairly  alive  with 
these  tiny  creatures,  but  the  army  of  chick-a-dees 
is  after  them.  If  the  chick-a-dee  should  dis- 
appear, our  forests  would  at  once  suffer. 

In  apple  growing  countries  each  spring  men 
go  about  in  the  orchards  with  a  spraying  machine 
upon  a  large  wagon,  spraying  poison  upon  the 
trees,  that  they  may  kill  the  pests  that  would 
destroy  the  fruit.  But  men  are  not  alone  in  their 
fight  against  the  pests,  for  an  army  of  birds  are 
also  helping. 

This  army  consists  of  half  a  dozen  different 
kinds  of  fly  catchers,  half  a  dozen  creepers,  and 
a  dozen  or  more  different  varieties  of  song  birds. 
All  are  chirping  and  twittering  away  with  might 


Nature's  Children  135 

and  main  and  catching  beetles,  caterpillars,  and 
moths  for  dear  life. 

Another  great  benefit  that  the  birds  are  to  the 
farmer  is  seen  in  the  work  they  do  destroying 
weed  seed,  for  you  must  remember  that  many 
birds  live  partly  upon  weed  seed. 

Each  autumn,  when  the  grain  has  been  cut 
and  stacked,  Mrs.  Bob  White  leads  her  large 
family,  of  ten  or  fifteen  nearly  grown  chicks, 
down  into  the  grainfields.  To  be  sure  they  eat 
some  grain,  but  this  is  compensated  for  ten 
times  over  by  the  weed  seed  that  they  destroy. 
All  day  long  they  will  be  seen  pecking  and  scratch- 
ing. They  pick  up  seed  from  the  obnoxious 
pigweed,  goldenrod,  wild  turnip,  and  a  score  of 
other  bad  weeds  which  are  the  poor  farmer's 
nightmare  for  the  crop  season. 

Every  night  when  this  interesting  bird  family 
goes  to  sleep  under  some  bush  or  fence,  each  of 
the  dozen  or  more  crops  is  fairly  bursting  with 
weed  seed.  Some  of  these  crops  have  been 
known  to  contain  thousands  of  seeds. 

So  you  can  readily  see  what  just  one  family 
of  quail  can  do  for  the  farmer  in  a  single  day. 


136  Nature's  Children 

The  government  officials  have  estimated  that 
the  Bob  White,  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  each 
year  pick  up  two  hundred  and  forty  tons  of  weed 
seed. 

What  the  easy-going  farmers  of  those  two 
states  would  do  without  the  quail  is  a  question. 

Even  the  noisy  quarrelsome  sparrow,  whom 
all  condemn  because  he  drives  out  other  birds 
that  we  like  better,  has  been  known  to  do  great 
good  in  this  manner.  It  has  been  estimated 
that  each  year  in  the  state  of  Iowa,  this  noisy 
disagreeable  fellow  eats  and  thus  destroys  many 
train  loads  of  weed  seed,  saving  the  farmer  a 
very  large  sum  of  money. 

Everything  that  God  has  made  has  its  place 
and  does  an  important  part  of  the  world's  work. 
At  the  first  thought,  you  would  not  think  that 
a  poor  angle-worm  could  be  of  service,  except 
to  put  upon  a  hook,  but  he  is  also  a  help  to  the 
farmer.  Turn  over  a  spadeful  of  dirt  and, 
if  the  soil  is  rich,  you  will  find  a  half  dozen  of 
these  wrigglers. 

What  have  they  been  doing  in  the  dirt  ?  Ex- 
amine it  carefully  and  you  will  see  that  it  is  full 


Nature's  Children  137 

of  small  holes  where  they  have  been  crawling 
in  and  out.  Thus  they  have  kept  it  mellow, 
and  suitable  for  crops  to  grow  in. 

This  is  the  work  of  the  angle-worm,  or  dirt 
worm,  to  knead  the  ground.  He  even  goes  so 
far  as  to  eat  the  soil,  that  he  may  keep  it  mellow. 
Dirt,  where  there  are  no  angle-worms,  is  hard 
and  unproductive. 

Even  the  poor  despised  skunk  is  the  farmer's 
helper,  for  he  will  go  up  and  down  through  the 
crops  picking  off  slugs  all  night  long. 


XVIII 

WHAT  THE  LITTLE  FURRED  AND 

FEATHERED   FOLKS   DO 

IN   WINTER 

When  you  children  are  tucked  in  your  warm 
beds  in  winter,  while  the  winds  howl  outside, 
and  the  snow  or  sleet  drives  against  the  window 
pane,  do  you  not  often  wonder  what  the  little 
furred  and  feathered  folks  are  doing  on  such 
terrible  nights  ? 

This  is  a  problem  that  used  to  worry  me 
considerably  when  I  was  a  boy,  and  it  still  does 
when  I  know  that  nuts  and  buds  are  scarce  and 
the  winter  uncommonly  cold. 

But  these  little  folks  take  care  of  themselves 
much  better  than  one  would  imagine.  Most 
of  the  woodpeckers  are  still  with  us  and  you 
will  hear  them  on  warm  days  sounding  their 


BIRDS  IN  WINTER 


140  Nature's  Children 

rat-a-tat-tat  on  a  dead  limb,  or  see  them  galloping 
over  the  frozen  fields. 

When  the  woodpecker  intends  to  winter  here, 
he  begins  making  new  quarters  early  in  the 
autumn.  You  may  hear  him  pounding  away  for 
several  days,  if  his  winter  house  is  near  your  own. 

He  builds  this  house  much  as  he  does  the 
spring  nest,  making  a  round  hole  running  back 
into  the  trunk  of  the  tree  for  a  few  inches,  and 
then  running  it  down  a  ways.  At  the  bottom 
he  lines  it  nicely  and  there  he  sleeps  away  most 
of  the  cold  winter,  only  coming  out  for  food  once 
or  twice  a  day. 

Of  the  other  birds,  we  see  much  of  the  chick- 
a-dee  and  the  snowbird,  but  they  are  regular 
winter  friends.  The  snowbird  is  used  to  living 
away  up  in  the  frozen  North,  and  he  likes  the 
cold  and  the  storm.  What  tales  he  could  tell 
us,  if  he  had  a  mind  to,  of  the  blue  fox  and  the 
musk  ox,  and  all  the  other  Arctic  animals. 

All  of  the  squirrels  are  sleeping  away  the  cold 
winter.  The  chipmunk  has  laid  up  a  fine 
store  of  nuts  under  the  root  of  the  old  pine,  and 
he  will  not  come  out  all  winter  longc  The 


Nature's  Children  141 

chances  are  that  he  will  still  have  nuts  left  in  the 
spring,  for  he  is  a  provident  little  chap. 

The  gray  squirrel  also  sleeps  all  through  the 
winter,  only  waking  up  now  and  then  to  take  a 
nibble  at  his  stores.  But  the  red  squirrel  does 
not  store  up  as  large  a  supply  as  his  cousins. 
He  is  a  rattle-brained  fellow  and  he  scatters  his 
winter  supply  about  in  half  a  dozen  places. 
Often  you  will  see  him  out  in  the  winter  looking 
for  some  one  of  his  half  dozen  granaries.  Some- 
times he  forgets  where  he  has  made  his  pantry 
and  has  to  go  hungry. 

Often  the  gray  squirrel  sleeps  in  a  hollow 
tree,  and  sometimes  he  makes  himself  a  fine 
hammock  in  the  top.  This  is  made  by  placing 
sticks  crosswise  in  a  crotch  of  the  tree,  and  then 
by  filling  in  leaves  to  make  a  nest.  When  the 
house  is  done  Mr.  Squirrel  crawls  into  the  middle 
of  this  nest,  and  lets  the  wind  rock  him  all  the 
winter  long. 

The  rabbit  does  not  care  much  how  cold  it  is. 
The  winter  is  his  play  time  and  he  likes  it.  His 
coat  is  warm  and  thick  and  just  the  color  of  the 
snow,  so  that  his  many  enemies  cannot  see  him. 


142  Nature's  Children 

If  he  can  manage  to  dodge  the  owl,  the  fox,  the 
weasel,  the  wildcat  and  other  of  his  enemies,  he 
has  a  fine  time  in  the  winter. 

One  of  his  chief  amusements  is  to  play  tag  on 
a  moonlight  night.  Then  sometimes  in  the 
depths  of  the  deep  laurel  swamp  there  will  be 
dozens  of  the  white  nimble  creatures  all  playing 
tag. 

As  the  rabbit  is  a  vegetarian,  living  on  bark, 
he  can  always  find  plenty  of  food  in  the  winter. 

The  partridge  too  is  a  vegetarian,  in  winter  time 
living  on  buds,  but  he  is  often  rather  cold,  for  he 
is  not  quite  as  well  clad  as  is  the  rabbit. 

If  the  night  is  not  too  cold  the  partridge  roosts 
in  a  fir  tree  where  the  thick  boughs  shield 
him,  but  if  it  is  very  cold  and  windy  the  par- 
tridge dives  under  the  snow  and  sleeps  in  a  white, 
soft  bed  until  the  morning  comes. 

Sometimes  a  strange  thing  happens  to  the 
poor  partridge  while  he  is  sleeping  in  his  snow- 
bed.  Perhaps  there  will  be  a  rain  storm,  and 
the  snow  will  crust  over,  so  in  the  morning  he 
will  be  a  prisoner  under  the  snow.  Then  if  he 
cannot  break  through  he  will  starve. 


Nature's  Children  143 

I  am  afraid  that  the  fox,  as  witty  as  he  is, 
sometimes  goes  hungry  in  the  winter.  When 
there  is  no  snow  on  the  ground  he  depends  to  a 
great  degree  on  mice  for  his  food,  but  now  the 
mice  are  all  safe,  so  he  must  sharpen  his  wits  and 
catch  a  partridge  or  rabbit,  or  he  will  even  visit 
the  chicken  coop  if  he  gets  too  hungry. 

Down  in  the  deep  woods  the  raccoon  is  sleeping 
soundly  in  a  hollow  tree.  The  raccoon  is  a  real 
little  brother  to  the  bear.  He  walks  like  a  bear 
and  he  has  the  same  droll  countenance. 

All  through  the  winter  months  he  sleeps  just 
as  the  bear  does,  living  on  the  fat  that  he  stored 
up  in  the  autumn  when  food  was  plenty. 

The  little  furred  and  feathered  creatures  often 
come  close  to  the  house  in  winter  and  you  chil- 
dren can  have  fun  feeding  them  and  watching 
them  come  and  go. 

Here  is  a  list  of  the  friends  that  you  may  make 
if  you  will  be  generous  with  your  crumbs  and 
occasionally  a  bit  of  grain  in  the  winter. 

The  snowbird  and  the  chick-a-dee  will  flock 
to  your  window  sill  and  may  even  be  coaxed  into 
the  house  if  you  wish.  The  jay  and  the  gros- 


144  Nature's  Children 

beak  will  come  to  the  shed,  and  crows,  owls,  and 
woodpeckers  will  also  partake  of  your  bounty 
in  a  wary  manner. 

The  red  squirrel  is  always  on  hand  to  get  his 
share,  once  he  has  found  you  out,  and  when  it  is 
very  warm  the  grayer  may  wake  up  for  a  few 
hours  and  come  and  see  you. 

There  is  nothing  more  pleasant  as  the  winter 
days  go  by,  than  seeing  these  little  friends  come 
and  go,  and  there  is  keen  satisfaction  in  knowing 
that  you  have  helped  them  to  brave  the  stern 
winter  and  perhaps  given  them  a  breakfast  or 
supper  when  otherwise  they  would  have  gone 
hungry. 


XIX 

BIRDS    AND    ANIMALS    THAT    ENJOY 
SOCIETY 

One  has  merely  to  watch  a  pair  of  house- 
hunting bluebirds  as  they  flit  from  point  to  point, 
peeping  into  all  sorts  of  holes  for  a  suitable 
place  to  build  their  nest,  to  be  convinced  that 
birds  enjoy  one  another's  company.  But  these 
are  mating  birds,  and,  in  this  story  I  am  going 
to  tell  you  how  the  birds  and  animals  like  to  go 
together  in  large  companies,  ranging  all  the  way 
from  a  family  of  three  or  four  members  to  a 
flock  or  herd  of  many  hundred  members. 

If  you  ever  have  the  good  fortune  to  watch  a 
family  of  kingfishers  on  the  first  day  that  they 
come  forth  to  learn  to  fish,  you  will  see  a  very 
noisy,  jolly  family.  To  be  sure,  there  is  some 
scrapping  among  them,  but  there  is  also  much 
good  comradeship,  and  the  best  of  sport  and 
rivalry  in  learning  to  fish. 


146  Nature's  Children 

•  A  litter  of  young  foxes  will  play  together  rolling 
and  snapping  like  puppies.  They  will  chase  a 
leaf  that  the  wind  whisks  by  and  show  as  much, 
zest  in  their  play  as  kittens.  When  the  first 
snow  comes,  the  fox  and  geese  track  that  they 
will  mark  out,  would  make  a  boy  dizzy. 

A  family  of  young  minks  will  play  like  kittens, 
racing  up  and  down  the  brook  upon  the  stones, 
and  swimming  in  the  deep  pools. 

The  bird  families  are  usually  larger  than  those 
of  the  quadrupeds.  A  bevy  of  young  partridges 
will  hold  together  until  the  fall  madness  afflicts 
them  in  November,  when  they  scatter  and  each 
shifts  for  himself. 

Did  you  ever  imagine  when  a  flock  of  snow- 
birds flash  by  that  this  flock  is  merely  a  snowbird 
family,  or  perhaps  two  broods  of  snowbirds  ? 

A  small  flock  of  wild  geese  of  ten  or  a  dozen 
birds  is  merely  a  nice  family  party.  You  will 
see  the  old  gander,  who  is  the  father,  flying  at 
the  point  of  the  wedge,  and  leading  the  party. 

When  the  flock  of  geese  is  very  large  it  is  several 
families  gathered  together.  This  is  probably 
all  the  birds  that  nested  about  a  certain  Canadian 


Nature's  Children  147 

lake.     It  might  be  called  a  bird  village  going 
south. 

The  blackbirds  also  go  in  large  companies 
and  often  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  birds  will 
go  chattering  and  scolding  by,  fairly  making  the 
air  black  and  deafening  one  with  their  chatter. 

Years  and  years  ago,  when  our  grandfathers 
were  boys,  great  flocks  of  wood  pigeons  went 
over  each  spring.  Some  of  these  flocks  were  so 
large  that  they  shut  out  the  sunlight  sometimes 
for  even  an  hour.  But  the  poor  wood  pigeon 
was  caught  in  great  numbers  in  nets  and  made 
into  pigeon  pies,  so  that  now  it  is  no  longer  seen. 

Still  more  interesting  than  the  flocks  of  birds 
are  the  herds  of  the  deer  family.  Each  year,  early 
in  December,  when  the  deep  snows  begin  to  fall, 
the  great  bull  moose  who  is  leading  the  herd  will 
select  a  place  for  the  winter  yard.  The  moose 
and  the  other  members  of  the  deer  family  cannot 
get  about  in  very  deep  snow,  so  they  select  a  spot 
where  there  is  much  birch  and  maple  browse, 
and  some  good  live  springs  of  water.  Then 
they  mark  out  paths  in  and  out  through  their 
domain,  until  it  looks  like  an  enormous  fox  and 


148  Nature's  Children 

geese  track.  After  each  snow  they  will  run 
about  in  the  different  paths  treading  it  down, 
so  that  they  will  still  be  able  to  get  about. 

As  the  snows  get  deeper  and  deeper  the  deer  are 
able  to  keep  fewer  and  fewer  paths  open  until 
March  comes,  when  the  yard  may  not  be  even 
half  as  large  as  it  was  first  planned.  By  this 
time,  all  the  small  branches  upon  the  birches  and 
maples  and  many  other  trees  have  been  eaten  by 
the  hungry  moose. 

Deer  yard  in  the  same  manner.  Within  a 
few  miles  of  my  own  home  I  know  where  several 
such  yards  are  made  each  winter. 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  the  great  western  plains 
were  covered  with  bison.  These  animals,  which 
are  the  largest  wild  animals  on  this  continent, 
went  in  herds  of  many  tens  of  thousands.  Each 
spring  there  was  a  great  stampede  of  the  main 
herd  from  the  south  to  the  north,  and  each  fall 
they  moved  back  south  again.  Sometimes  the 
prairies  would  be  covered  with  these  enormous 
creatures  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  The 
great  bulls  running  in  front,  and  the  cows  and 
calves  coming  behind. 


A  HERD  OF  BISON 


150  Nature's  Children 

The  rumble  of  their  hoofs  was  like  heavy 
thunder,  and  when  they  travelled  in  large  com- 
panies the  prairies  trembled.  Often  the  Indians 
would  follow  them  for  days  shooting  and  kill- 
ing many  for  their  winter's  supply  of  meat,  and 
for  the  warm  skins. 

But  now  the  splendid  herds  have  all  dis- 
appeared, and  there  are  only  about  two  thousand 
buffalo  in  the  whole  country. 

The  restless  caribou,  one  of  whose  Indian 
names  signifies  the  wanderer,  also  goes  in  great 
herds,  and  moves  from  north  to  south,  and  from 
south  to  north,  as  the  seasons  change.  Their 
object  in  doing  this  is  to  go  where  they  can  still 
get  at  the  grass  and  moss  and  small  twigs  for 
browse. 

Old  hunters  say  that  it  is  a  majestic  sight  to 
see  a  thousand  or  ten  thousand  caribou  moving 
across  the  country  at  that  easy,  steady  trot,  their 
hoofs  clicking  and  their  horns  rattling  together 
like  mighty  castanets. 

Wolves  also  like  the  company  of  their  fellows 
and  often  go  in  packs,  especially  in  winters  when 
the  hunting  is  poor.  At  such  times  the  long, 


Nature's  Children  151 

wailing  hunting  cry  of  the  gray  wolf  is  a  sound 
to  send  a  shiver  to  the  hearts  of  the  bravest  of 
the  forest  denizens. 

While  hunting  in  packs  they  can  attack  and 
pull  down  game  that  one  wolf  would  never  think 
of  attacking  alone.  In  this  manner  they  will 
hunt  deer  and  moose  and  the  story  of  many  a 
bloody  battle  can  often  be  read  on  the  snow. 

They  do  not  often  attack  the  moose  in  the 
open,  for  he  is  a  mighty  creature  dealing  death 
with  both  his  antlers  and  his  sharp  hoofs,  but 
if  he  gets  mired  in  the  spring  mud,  or  is  disabled, 
they  are  upon  him  and  soon  worry  out  his  strong 
life. 

The  coyote,  who  is  the  small  prairie  wolf,  also 
sometimes  goes  in  packs,  but  he  is  a  sneaking 
little  wolf  and  about  the  worst  thing  he  does  is 
to  make  night  hideous  with  his  unearthly  cries. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  all  wild 
creatures  that  gather  together  for  company  and 
protection  are  the  villages  of  prairie  dogs.  These 
strange  little  creatures  will  often  fairly  honey- 
comb a  side  hill  and  dozens  of  them  can  frequently 
be  seen  sitting  upon  their  haunches  at  the 


152  Nature's  Children 

entrance  of  their  holes.  But  let  a  gun  flash 
from  a  nearby  hilltop  and,  as  though  by  magic, 
all  will  disappear.  It  is  even  said  that,  like  the 
dipper  duck,  they  are  quicker  than  the  hunter's 
bullet. 

You  will  at  once  see,  little  reader,  from  what 
I  have  told  you  of  families,  flocks,  herds  and 
packs,  that  the  wild  creatures  often  join  together 
in  large  numbers  for  company  and  protection, 
and  I  am  sure  that  many  of  them  are  also  social 
and  enjoy  the  company  of  their  fellows. 


XX 

STORIES   IN  THE   SNOW 

When  nature  has  spread  a  soft  white  blanket 
over  the  fields  and  the  evergreen  trees  are  gowned 
with  new  snow,  then  the  fields  and  woods  are 
like  a  great  book  that  one  can  read  as  easily  as 
he  can  the  printed  page  if  he  knows  the  alphabet 
of  the  forest. 

Some  of  the  simplest  stories  that  one  may  read 
in  the  snow  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  and  you  can 
see  for  yourself  that  they  are  most  interesting. 

Now  that  the  ground  is  covered  with  snow, 
the  fox  and  the  rabbit  and  the  squirrel  and  the 
weasel  cannot  any  of  them  stir  abroad  without 
telling  all  who  pass  their  way,  where  they  have 
been,  and  what  they  have  been  doing. 

If  you  see  a  track  with  four  paw  prints  in  a 
bunch,  the  two  back  ones  spread  out,  and  the 
two  forward  prints  following  after  each  other, 
so  that  the  whole  track  is  fan  shaped,  you  may 


154  Nature's  Children 

know  that  a  rabbit  has  been  along.  If  the 
tracks  are  far  apart  he  was  going  with  long 
jumps,  and  in  a  great  hurry  about  something, 
but  if  they  are  near  together  he  was  taking  his 
time,  and  was  probably  out  for  his  health. 

You  will  notice  two  sizes  of  rabbit  tracks. 
The  larger  are  made  by  the  white  rabbit,  and 
the  smaller  by  the  little  gray  rabbit. 

Sometimes  you  will  see  the  tracks  of  one  or 
more  dogs  following  along  beside  the  rabbit 
track,  and  then  you  may  know  that  the  rabbit 
was  running  for  his  life  and  that  the  hounds 
were  after  him.  If  there  is  a  single  track  follow- 
ing the  rabbit  track,  and  it  looks  like  a  dog's 
track,  only  it  is  smaller,  you  will  know  that  sly 
Reynard,  the  red  fox,  is  following  the  rabbit  in 
hopes  of  overtaking  him  at  the  rubbing  tree  or 
while  he  is  feeding  or  playing,  and  catching  him. 
The  fox  is  very  hungry  these  cold  winter  days, 
and  has  to  sharpen  his  wits  and  hurtf  continually 
to  keep  from  starving. 

Here  is  a  fox  track.  Let  us  follow  it  and  see 
what  Reynard  is  doing  to-night.  Down  into  the 
meadow  it  leads  us.  If  it  were  summer  time 


156  Nature's  Children 

we  would  think  that  the  fox  was  going  to  hunt 
mice.  Here  and  there  he  has  stopped  at  a  bush 
or  stump,  smelling  about  to  see  what  he  could 
discover.  Here,  he  has  dug  under  this  old  log, 
and  there  is  some  crisp  last  year's  grass  scattered 
about  on  the  snow. 

Pick  up  the  grass  and  smell  of  it.  It  came 
from  a  field  mouse's  nest,  there  is  no  doubt  of  it, 
and  the  sly  fox  has  dug  the  little  fellow  out,  even 
though  he  was  well  protected  by  the  snow. 

In  another  place  we  can  see  where  Reynard 
has  dug  for  a  long  time  at  the  foot  of  a  tree. 
What  could  he  be  after  here — another  mouse? 

No,  this  time  I  imagine  he  spied  out  the  chip- 
munk's hole  and  thought  to  dig  him  out,  but 
the  frozen  ground  was  too  hard  and  he  had  to 
give  it  up. 

Under  a  little  scrub  spruce  are  some  partridge 
tracks.  They  look  just  like  the  tracks  the  hens 
make  about  the  house  after  a  new  snow-storm. 
Here  is  a  great  blurr  in  the  snow  where  the 
partridge  dove  under  and  spent  the  night.  On 
very  cold  nights  the  partridges  bury  themselves 
in  the  snow  to  get  warm,  and  the  foxes  go  about 


Nature's  Children  157 

trying  to  find  where  they  are  hidden,  that  they 
may  dig  them  out  and  eat  them.  Mr.  Fox  did 
not  get  this  partridge,  for  there  are  no  blood 
spots  or  feathers  on  the  snow. 

If  Mr.  Fox  does  not  find  his  supper  elsewhere 
he  will  go  into  the  swamp  and  try  to  catch  a  rabbit. 
He  may  sit  for  hours  by  the  rabbit's  road  which 
is  well  trodden  and  where  he  knows  they  are 
likely  to  pass.  If  he  cannot  get  a  rabbit  in  this 
manner,  which  is  called  the  still  hunt,  he  will 
go  creeping  carefully  through  the  swamp  trying 
to  catch  one  while  he  is  at  play.  The  rabbits 
are  very  playful  and  they  love  dearly  to  play 
tag  in  the  moonlight.  Frequently  you  will  see 
where  they  have  been  playing  and  the  snow 
will  be  tracked  in  every  direction. 

A  rabbit  swamp  is  a  very  interesting  place  in 
midwinter,  and  there  are  many  thrilling  stories 
to  be  read  there  after  each  new  snow.  Through 
the  middle  of  the  swamp  are  well  trodden  rabbit 
roads  or  streets,  with  side  streets  branching 
off  in  every  direction.  Each  one  of  these  leads 
up  to  a  bunny's  front  door,  if  you  could  only 
search  it  out.  These  streets  are  made  very 


158  Nature's  Children 

crooked,  and  even  the  cunning  fox  cannot  always 
puzzle  them  out. 

Once  in  a  while  you  will  see  where  the  poor 
cotton-tail  ran  at  the  top  of  his  speed,  jumping 
first  this  way  and  then  that.  There  is  no  fox 
track  following  his,  and  no  weasels  either.  The 
rabbit  is  quite  as  much  afraid  of  the  weasel  as  he 
is  the  fox  and  he  will  sometimes  lie  right  down 
in  the  snow  and  be  killed  when  he  sees  the  weasel 
following  him.  This  time  there  is  no  weasel 
track,  but  the  poor  rabbit  seems  to  be  greatly 
alarmed.  Suddenly  his  tracks  disappear,  and 
you  wonder  where  he  could  have  gone  to.  Did 
he  take  wings  to  himself  and  fly  away  ? 

Not  quite  that,  but  something  almost  like  it. 
See,  here  by  his  last  jump  there  is  a  blurr  in  the 
snow.  That  was  made  by  great  wings. 

Poor  little  bunny!  It  was  a  great  hungry 
owl  that  spied  him  at  play  and  swooped  down 
upon  him.  He  only  had  time  to  make  a  few 
frightened  jumps  before  he  was  caught. 

But  only  a  few  of  the  rabbits  get  caught,  when 
we  consider  all  that  there  are,  and  the  rest  have 
a  fine  time. 


Nature's  Children  159 

Whenever  Mr.  Skunk  stirs  abroad  he  leaves 
the  queerest  kind  of  a  track  which  you  cannot 
fail  to  tell.  The  skunk's  legs  are  so  short  that 
his  belly  drags  in  the  snow,  so  that  his  track  is 
just  a  long  furrow.  Mr.  Skunk  does  not  stir 
out  except  on  warm  days,  for  he  is  well  protected 
by  his  fat  and  prefers  to  sleep  away  most  of  the 
winter,  just  as  the  woodchuck  does. 

The  prettiest  little  track  of  all  is  made  by 
either  the  field  or  wood  mouse.  It  is  so  tiny 
that  it  looks  like  lace  work.  But  these  little 
mice  are  very  thrifty ;  they  have  good  stores 
laid  up  against  the  cold  winter  months  and  they 
simply  come  out  to  see  how  the  winter  is  going. 

Sometimes  the  wood  mouse  will  build  himself 
the  cutest  kind  of  a  house.  After  the  birds 
have  gone  south,  he  will  find  some  empty  bird's 
nest,  and  build  a  roof  over  the  top.  He  will 
leave  a  door  on  the  under  side  through  which  he 
can  come  and  go.  Then  no  matter  how  cold  and 
wintry  the  weather  may  be  Mr.  Wood-mouse  will 
always  be  warm.  Sometimes  the  snow  may 
even  cover  over  the  top  of  his  house,  but  he  does 
not  care,  for  that  will  make  it  all  the  warmer. 


XXI 
SILVER-KING,    THE    GREAT    SALMON 

Early  in  October  the  salmon  will  be  found 
near  the  head-waters  of  all  our  great  rivers  in 
British  America  getting  ready  to  lay  their  eggs. 
Mr.  Salmon  will  be  seen  piling  up  a  round  heap 
of  small  stones  and  gravel  just  where  some  little 
brook  empties  into  the  large  stream.  Here  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Ittle  stream  will  always  be  pure, 
sweet  water,  so  you  see  it  is  a  good  place  for  the 
salmon's  nest.  When  Mr.  Salmon  has  gotten  a 
good  large  pile  of  pebbles  and  sand  arranged 
to  suit  him,  he  will  set  to  work  ploughing  furrows 
through  it.  On  Mr.  Salmon's  lower  jaw  is  a  beak 
or  hook,  that  has  been  growing  all  summer  just 
that  he  might  use  it  in  ploughing  furrows  in  the 
nest  for  Mrs.  Salmon  in  the  autumn. 

When  Mr.  Salmon  has  the  nest  ready,  Mrs. 
Salmon  will  lay  thousands  and  thousands  of 

eggs  in  the  furrows,  and  Mr.  Salmon  will  cover 

1 60 


I 


1 62  Nature's  Children 

them  xip.  There  is  need  that  they  lay  a  great 
number  of  eggs,  for  many  of  them  are  eaten  by 
small  fish.  All  the  while  that  Mrs.  Salmon  is 
laying  her  eggs,  there  are  a  swarm  of  small 
fish  swimming  about  the  nest  snatching  them 
out.  Mr.  Salmon  has  to  be  very  vigilant  to 
keep  them  from  eating  up  all  the  eggs. 

By  the  time  that  the  first  fringe  of  ice  forms 
along  the  edge  of  the  pools  the  eggs  are  all  laid, 
and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Salmon  are  off  to  the  sea 
again  and  the  eggs  are  left  to  hatch  when  the 
water  shall  get  warm  enough  in  early  spring. 

In  the  spring  the  swift  current  will  wash  away 
the  sand  covering  the  eggs,  and  the  warmth 
in  the  water  will  hatch  them,  then  tiny  mites 
of  fish  will  come  wriggling  out  of  the  eggs,  tail 
first,  in  the  bottom  of  the  stream. 

These  fish  are  so  small  that  you  would  have 
to  look  twice  to  see  them.  For  some  time  they 
are  not  very  hungry,  but  soon  they  are  looking 
for  larvae,  which  are  tiny  mites  of  river  life. 

The  little  salmon,  who  is  called  a  parr  until  he 
is  a  year  old,  soon  gets  very  expert  in  picking 
up  his  living,  but  he  early  learns  that  he  not 


Nature's  Children  163 

only  hunts  for  his  own  living,  but  he  also  is  hunted 
to  feed  fish  larger  than  himself.  This  is  the 
way  of  life  in  rivers  and  in  the  great  ocean,  the 
big  fish  all  feed  on  the  little  ones. 

But  the  little  salmon  is  very  wary.  He  always 
stays  near  his  hiding  place,  which  is  under  a 
stone  or  root. 

Whenever  danger  threatens  him  he  will  flash 
into  his  retreat  so  quickly  that  the  eye  could 
hardly  follow  him. 

Up  to  the  time  the  little  salmon  is  a  year  old 
he  wears  a  bright  speckled  covering  something 
like  the  beautiful  brook  trout,  but  when  he  is 
a  year  old  a  great  change  comes  over  him.  All 
of  his  bright  red  and  yellow  spots  scale  off  and 
he  puts  on  a  shiny  silver  scale  that  covers  him 
from  head  to  tail.  Now  he  is  little  silversides 
and  no  longer  a  parr,  but  a  smolt. 

With  the  putting  on  of  this  new  silver  coat  a 
new  impulse  comes  to  the  little  salmon.  Thus 
far  he  has  been  content  to  keep  within  a  few 
feet  of  the  nest  where  he  was  hatched,  but  now 
he  must  travel.  Not  only  he,  but  all  his  brothers. 
So  with  one  accord  all  the  male  salmon  that  were 


164  Nature's  Children 

hatched  at  the  mouth  of  the  little  brook  start 
on  a  mad  race  down  stream.  I  do  not  know 
that  they  understand  where  they  are  going, 
but  they  have  really  started  for  the  great  ocean. 

Down  through  swift  running  shallows  and 
through  still  pools  they  flash,  all  running  a  mad 
race  for  the  sea.  Soon  they  meet  a  great  com- 
pany of  large  salmon  coming  up  from  the  sea. 
Now  they  must  look  out  or  they  will  be  eaten. 

It  may  be  ten  or  twenty  or  fifty  miles  to  the 
ocean,  but  they  go  in  such  a  mad  rush  that  they 
soon  reach  it  and  swim  far  out  into  this  new  and 
wonderful  world. 

Here  upon  the  floor  of  the  ocean  is  a  great 
forest  of  cool  green  seaweed  and  many  sub- 
marine plants,  all  waving  with  the  pulsing  of 
the  water. 

Here  in  the  ocean,  the  little  would-be  salmon 
finds  abundance  of  food,  and  about  all  he  does 
is  to  eat,  so  he  grows  very  fast. 

When  he  reached  the  ocean  he  was  about 
six  inches  long  and  weighed  less  than  a  quarter 
of  a  pound,  but  in  a  single  month,  living  upon  the 
food  that  the  ocean  provides,  the  young  salmon 


Nature's  Children  165 

increases  his  weight  to  a  pound,  and  his  length 
to  a  foot.  In  three  months'  time  he  will  weigh 
four  or  five  pounds,  and  then  he  will  turn  his 
nose  back  to  the  stream  down  which  he  came 
in  the  spring.  His  life  in  the  sea  has  been  very 
strange  and  very  satisfying,  but  now  there  is 
something  calling  to  him  in  the  fresh  water. 

He  will  not  ascend  any  stream  that  he  happens 
to  come  across,  but  will  head  straight  for  the 
stream  where  he  was  hatched. 

All  of  his  brothers  will  be  going  back  too,  and 
his  sisters,  who  are  still  small  silversides,  will  be 
coming  down  stream  to  go  to  the  ocean,  just  as 
the  male  salmon  did  three  months  before. 

There  will  be  many  dangers  waiting  for  the 
salmon  on  this  his  first  year  of  ascending  the 
stream,  but  if  he  is  wise  according  to  the  wisdom 
of  a  salmon  he  will  escape  them  all. 

First,  he  will  have  to  learn  to  jump  the  falls, 
and  this  is  quite  a  feat.  If  you  should  happen 
to  be  standing  by  the  stream  when  the  fish  were 
running,  you  would  notice  a  bright  splash,  and 
a  salmon  would  be  seen  to  jump  a  foot  or  two 
out  of  the  water  just  below  the  falls,  then  all 


1 66  Nature's  Children 

would  be  quiet,  but  presently  there  would  be  a 
splash  that  would  send  up  a  bright  -spray  of 
water,  and  a  great  silver  salmon  would  leap  clear 
over  the  falls  and  land  in  the  pool  above.  It 
was  a  great  jump  and  one  that  you  would  hardly 
believe  that  a  fish  could  take. 

On  moonlight  nights  when  the  salmon  are 
running,  the  bear  will  be  seen  crouching  on  a 
rock  in  the  swift  shallows  waiting  for  his  fish. 
When  one  flashes  by  within  arm's  reach,  Bruin 
makes  a  quick  stroke  and  the  salmon  flies  out 
on  to  the  bank  and  is  caught. 

The  otter,  who  is  the  greatest  fisherman  of  all 
quadrupeds,  will  lie  upon  a  rock  in  the  stream 
and  take  his  salmon  whenever  and  wherever  he 
likes.  The  fishhawk  and  the  loon  also  take 
toll  from  the  stream  and  the  salmon  is  usually 
their  prize,  so  you  see  this  fish  has  many  dangers 
to  face,  and  obstacles  to  overcome.  But  if  he 
is  lucky  he  will  go  back  to  the  headwaters  of  the 
stream  where  he  was  born  and  be  building  a  nest 
for  his  own  mate  the  third  year  of  his  adven- 
turous life. 


XXII 
WINTER   VISITORS 

When  the  flowers  have  faded  and  the  bright 
autumn  leaves  have  fallen  from  the  trees  and  the 
old  earth  seems  so  bare  and  forsaken  that  it 
makes  us  for  the  moment  very  sad,  then  nature 
comes  and  spreads  a  soft  white  blanket  over  the 
fields  and  forest  and  tucking  in  all  the  seared 
flowers  and  ferns,  bids  them  sleep  sound  until 
Springtime,  saying  that  she  will  awaken  them 
in  good  season. 

Now  this  new  blanket  of  snow  puts  all 
things  right  again,  and  we  are  glad  that  it  is 
winter. 

But  our  birds  have  nearly  all  flown  south, 
and  we  should  be  very  lonesome  without  them, 
did  not  nature  send  more  to  take  their  places. 
To  be  sure  those  that  she  sends  are  not  so  bright 
colored,  or  such  sweet  singers  as  our  summer 

birds,  but  they  are  very  interesting  little  fellows 

167 


1 68  Nature's  Children 

and  they  make  up  by  their  jaunty  manners, 
what  they  lack  in  song. 

But  where  do  these  birds  come  from  ?  you  may 
ask,  and  it  is  quite  a  natural  question. 

They  come  from  the  frozen  Arctic — from 
the  land  of  the  midnight  sun,  where  the  great 
white  polar  bear  and  the  walrus  are  found,  and 
where  the  musk  ox  lives  in  large  herds. 

Perhaps  the  first  junco  who  greets  you,  telling 
you  just  as  plainly  that  winter  is  coming,  as  in 
the  late  winter  the  bluebird  tells  you  that  spring 
has  come,  has  himself  ridden  upon  the  back  of  a 
musk  ox.  He  also  has  doubtless  seen  the  won- 
derful blue  fox  scurrying  over  the  snow  and  the 
reindeer-sled  carrying  the  Esquimaux  upon  the 
hunt. 

It  is  a  queer  life  that  the  children  of  that  north- 
land  live,  dwelling  in  a  snow-house,  or  in  a  hole 
dug  in  the  side  of  a  hill,  and  eating  blubber  and 
dried  fish. 

As  I  have  already  told  you,  one  of  the  first  of 
these  winter  visitors  is  the  snowbird.  You  will 
see  them  in  flocks  of  a  dozen  or  twenty.  This 
is  probably  a  brood,  with  the  old  birds  and  all 


i  yo  Nature's  Children 

the  young  ones  in  a  family  going  together  and 
sharing  one  another's  fortune.  These  little  birds 
do  a  great  deal  of  good,  for  they  are  weed-seed 
eaters,  and  each  seed  that  they  pick  up  saves  the 
farmer  a  weed  in  his  field. 

But  sometimes  when  the  snow  is  very  deep 
it  is  hard  to  find  weed-seeds,  and  the  snowbirds 
will  be  only  too  glad  to  take  toll  from  your  box 
of  grain,  if  you  are  thoughtful  enough  to  provide 
such  a  box  for  them. 

Then  there  are  the  snow  buntings,  looking 
like  a  flock  of  great  snowflakes,  as  they  skim 
along.  They,  too,  have  come  from  the  frozen 
northland  and  have  seen  strange  sights. 

On  cold  winters  you  may  see  a  very  handsome 
bird,  the  prettiest  of  all  our  winter  visitors.  He 
is  about  the  size  of  a  robin.  His  general  color 
is  a  slatey  gray,  with  darker  markings,  and  also 
some  very  rosy  red  markings,  often  as  bright 
as  the  red  upon  the  bluebird. 

It  is  a  pleasant  sight  upon  a  winter  day,  when 
there  is  little  or  no  color,  to  see  a  flock  of  these 
birds  descend  in  the  trees. 

Often  when  people  say  that  they  have  seen  a 


Nature's  Children  171 

robin  in  midwinter,  it  is  a  pine  grosbeak  instead, 
for  a  pine  grosbeak  that  has  red  upon  its  breast 
looks  quite  like  a  robin  redbreast. 

Another  dear  little  bird,  who  is  much  smaller 
than  any  of  these  I  have  mentioned,  is  the  ruby- 
crested  kinglet.  This  bird  is  so  small  that  his 
strength  and  his  wit  would  seem  to  be  too  slight 
to  carry  him  through  the  bitter  winter,  but  he 
comes  to  the  old  apple-tree  near  my  study  window 
day  after  day,  so  you  see  he  is  a  match  for  old 
winter. 

The  noisy,  quarrelsome  English  sparrow  is 
always  quite  arrogant  in  the  winter  and  they 
sometimes  drive  the  other  birds  away  from  my 
grainbox,  which  is  not  nice,  especially  as  the 
grain  is  intended  for  the  other  birds,  rather  than 
for  them. 

Each  winter  the  nine-killer,  or  great  northern 
shrike,  comes  down  to  hunt,  and  one  of  the  best 
things  that  this  cruel  bird  ever  does,  is  to  hunt 
English  sparrows.  Even  then,  I  do  not  approve 
of  his  impaling  them  upon  a  barbed  wire  fence. 

This  nine-killer,  or  butcher-bird,  may  often 
be  seen  in  the  winter,  in  a  city  park,  chasing 


172  Nature's  Children 

small  birds,  but  as  long  as  he  keeps  after  the 
English  sparrows  and  lets  our  other  winter 
visitors  alone,  it  is  all  right. 

Three  or  four  winters  ago  a  large  number  of 
great  white  Arctic  owls  were  driven  southward 
by  the  extreme  cold  and  the  poor  hunting  in 
the  land  of  the  midnight  sun,  and  they  made 
sad  work  in  our  New  England  forest. 

These  birds  are  very  large  and  strong  and  it 
takes  a  great  deal  of  food  to  satisfy  their 
appetites.  In  the  northland,  where  they  usually 
dwell,  they  will  frequently  pick  up  the  blue  fox, 
which  is  smaller  than  our  red  fox,  and  kill  him. 

No  one  can  tell  how  many  crows,  jays,  par- 
tridges, woodpeckers,  rabbits,  and  red  squirrels 
were  killed  during  that  severe  winter,  here  in 
New  England,  by  these  great  white  owls,  but  it 
was  certainly  a  large  number. 

The  little  screech  owl,  who  really  does  not 
screech  at  all,  is  also  often  heard  in  the  winter, 
sounding  his  shrill  mournful  tremulous  whistle, 
but  he  is  also  with  us  in  the  summer,  so  is  not  a 
winter  visitor. 

There  are  also  other  birds  who  are  hardy  and 


Nature's  Children  173 

brave-hearted  who  stay  with  us  the  whole  year 
through.  The  grave  crow  will  often  be  seen 
in  the  orchard  picking  the  seeds  from  a  frozen 
apple.  The  noisy  jay  will  come  to  the  corncrib 
for  corn,  or  squall  derisively  from  the  edge  of 
the  woods.  It  is  very  pleasant  to  see  him,  with 
his  bright  blue  uniform  and  his  gay  topknot. 

Most  of  the  woodpeckers  stay  with  us  all 
the  winter  through.  But  our  sweet  singers 
are  gone.  The  blithe  bobolink  is  in  the  sunny 
south,  getting  fat  upon  rice,  where  it  is  estimated 
that  he  eats  two  million  dollars  worth  each  year. 

The  robin  and  the  oriole  are  also  in  the  sunny 
south.  In  Georgia  the  robin  is  caught  in  great 
numbers  and  made  into  pie,  sad  to  relate. 

From  this  chapter  my  little  reader  will  see 
that  our  winter  visitors  are  almost  as  important 
as  those  that  come  in  the  summer,  for  they  come 
when  we  are  lonely  and  in  need  of  their  company. 
If  they  are  so  brave  to  fly  hundreds  of  miles  to 
see  us,  we  can  at  least  give  them  an  occasional 
handful  of  grain  to  keep  them  from  starving. 


XXIII 
THE  USES   OF  TAILS 

I  think  it  will  surprise  you  children  to  learn 
of  some  of  the  uses  that  tails  may  be  put  to  among 
animals,  birds,  and  fishes.  I  will  tell  you  of  a 
few  of  these  in  this  chapter-,  but  I  shall  not 
remember  them  all. 

To  all  of  the  birds,  and  the  fishes,  the  tail  is 
a  rudder  by  which  they  steer  when  swimming 
and  flying. 

It  is  only  the  birds  with  long  tails  that  can 
dart  this  way  and  that,  now  rising  and  now 
falling,  and  turning  from  left  to  right  with  the 
greatest  ease.  The  birds  with  short  tails  have 
to  content  themselves  with  flying  in  a  straight 
direction,  or  if  they  do  turn,  it  will  be  slowly, 
while  the  birds,  like  the  swallow,  can  skim  and 
dart. 

The  fish  turns  himself  in  the  water  by  means 

of  his  tail  and  it  also  helps  him  forward,  while 
174 


Nature's  Children  175 

the  queer  shrimp  pulls  himself  backwards 
through  the  water,  by  means  of  his  tail,  this 
being  his  only  mode  of  swimming. 

With  such  large  fishes  as  the  whale,  the  tail 
is  a  terrible  weapon  of  defense.  With  one 
blow  of  his  tail,  the  whale  will  smash  the  stoutest 
rowboat  to  pieces  and  send  its  occupants  in  every 
direction. 

The  queer  porcupine  also  uses  his  tail,  as  a 
weapon,  but  in  quite  a  different  way.  This 
strange  animal  is  covered  with  long  sharp  quills, 
some  of  them  three  inches  in  length.  When 
the  porcupine  is  attacked  he  crouches  down 
closely  upon  the  ground,  so  as  to  protect  his 
stomach,  .which  is  not  covered  with  quills,  and 
strikes  viciously  with  the  tail,  which  is  full  of 
his  sharpest,  longest  quills.  If  these  only  lodge 
in  an  enemy,  they  will  often  travel  clear  through 
the  body,  frequently  causing  death  and  always 
great  agony.  All  of  the  wild  creatures  soon 
learn  to  let  the  porcupine  alone  and  he  can  go 
whenever  and  wherever  he  wishes  without  much 
fear  of  being  disturbed. 

The  squirrels,  like  the  birds  and  the  fishes, 


176  Nature's  Children 

use  their  tails  as  a  rudder.  Whenever  a  squirrel 
jumps  from  a  great  height  he  keeps  his  balance, 
and  partly  steers  himself  by  means  of  his  tail. 
While  the  flying  squirrel  probably  could  not 
fly  at  all  without  his  broad,  flat  tail  which  helps 
let  him  down  easy  in  his  long  swift  coast. 

The  beaver,  the  otter  and  muskrat,  like  the 
fish,  all  use  their  tails  in  swimming.  The  otter 
uses  his  much  more  than  the  others,  and  that  is 
probably  why  he  is  the  best  swimmer  of  all 
quadrupeds. 

But  the  beaver's  broad  flat  tail,  which  is  like 
the  tail  of  no  other  animal,  serves  him  in  many 
ways.  If  he  is  building  his  mud  house  it  is  a 
good  trowel  with  which  to  smooth  off  the  mud. 
He  also  can  carry  dirt  upon  it  if  he  has  a  mind  to. 
When  he  is  cutting  down  a  tree,  standing  upon 
his  hind  legs,  the  tail  is  handy  to  balance 
him. 

When  the  beaver  colony  is  busy  upon  a  large 
dam,  one  beaver  usually  is  a  sentinel  watching 
from  some  advantage  point,  that  no  enemy  may 
approach  unobserved.  If  he  scents  danger, 
he  brings  his  broad,  flat  tail  down  upon  the 


178  Nature's  Children 

water  with  a  resounding  slap  and  all  the  beavers 
disappear  as  though  by  magic. 

To  the  little  dappled  fawn,  fleeing  with  its 
mother  through  the  woods  upon  a  dark  night, 
the  white  tail  of  its  parent,  which  is  called  the 
white  flag,  is  a  beacon  light  and  if  it  is  an  obe- 
dient fawn,  it  always  follows  where  the  white 
flag  leads,  and  thus  keeps  out  of  danger. 

To  the  little  bunny  in  the  laurel  swamp,  the 
round  comical  tail  of  its  mother  is  a  guiding 
star  that  leads  to  safety,  and  which  it  is  dangerous 
to  lose  sight  of. 

The  larger  quadrupeds,  like  the  horse,  the 
cow,  the  mule,  and  the  zebra,  use  their  tails  as 
a  switch  with  which  to  keep  off  the  flies  in  hot 
weather.  Sometimes  these  pests  would  drive  the 
animals  frantic  were  it  not  for  these  good  brushes. 

To  the  rat  his  tail  is  a  strong  rope,  with  which 
he  accomplishes  many  feats  that  he  could  not 
do  without  it.  When  the  rats  find  a  nest  of 
eggs,  which  they  wish  to  carry  away  and  hide 
against  the  time  of  need,  it  is  a  problem  for  them 
to  know  how  to  carry  them,  for  they  are  smooth 
and  hard  to  hold  on  to. 


Nature's  Children  179 

Finally  the  problem  is  solved  and  one  rat 
lies  down  upon  his  back  with  an  egg  firmly  held 
between  his  forepaws,  while  his  comrades  drag 
him  away  by  his  tail.  So  by  means  of  his  strong 
tail  he  is  converted  into  a  kind  of  stoneboat,  or 
drag. 

It  is  also  said  that  rats  will  let  themselves 
down  from  great  heights,  where  they  do  not 
dare  to  jump,  by  holding  on  to  one  another's 
tails. 

One  of  the  pictures  that  delighted  me  in  an 
old  natural  history,  when  I  was  a  small  boy, 
was  that  of  an  old  opossum  carrying  her  young 
across  a  stream.  She  made  her  babies  all  wind 
their  tails  about  hers,  which  was  held  out  stiff, 
and  she  was  carrying  them  across,  all  strung 
upon  her  tail. 

The  old  opossum  will  often  wind  its  tail  about 
a  limb  in  the  persimmon  tree,  and  go  to  sleep 
just  as  unconcernedly  as  though  it  was  on  the 
ground.  There  is  no  danger  either  that  the 
tail  will  forget  and  let  go. 

All  the  members  of  the  monkey  family  use 
their  tails  in  climbing,  or  to  swing  by,  as  you 


180  Nature's  Children 

will  at  once  see  by  watching  their  antics  in  a 
zoo. 

Upon  many  of  the  birds,  the  tail  is  a  gorgeous 
ornament.  What  would  the  peacock  be  without 
his  tail  ?  Even  the  rooster  seems  proud  of  his 
rainbow  curved  tail,  especially  if  his  plumage 
is  bright  colored. 

Upon  the  cat  family  the  tail  is  an  ornament 
and  it  has  a  language  all  its  own.  Such  is  the 
lashing  of  the  lion's  tail,  or  the  gentle  swishing 
of  pussy's. 

Without  a  tail  even  our  intelligent  friend,  the 
dog,  could  hardly  tell  us  how  much  he  loved  us, 
or  how  happy  he  was  at  our  home-coming. 


XXIV 
THE   LONG   SLEEP 

There  is  a  wise  provision  in  nature,  by  means 
of  which  the  flowers  and  plants  rest  when  they 
have  spent  their  strength  in  flower  and  fruit. 

Just  as  children  need  sleep  and  rest,  which 
they  take  each  night  when  the  dark  mantle  is 
spread  over  the  earth,  so  the  flowers  take  their 
sleep  and  rest  each  winter. 

It  is  for  this,  as  well  as  to  keep  them  warm,  that 
each  autumn  Nature  spreads  a  soft  white  blanket 
of  snow  over  them  and  bids  them  lay  down  to 
sweet  sleep,  saying  that  she  will  awaken  them  in 
time  for  the  first  warm  puffs  of  the  south  wind. 

In  the  same  way  certain  animals  roll  them- 
selves up  into  furry  balls  when  the  cold  weather 
comes,  and  sleep  away  the  winter  months. 

All  summer  long  the  woodchuck  has  been 
fattening  himself,  that  he  might  have  sufficient 
flesh  to  keep  him  warm  and  to  nourish  him  when 


1 82  Nature's  Children 

the  cold  should  come.  It  was  for  this  that  he 
raided  the  farmer's  bean  patch,  and  fed  so 
persistently  all  summer.  Now  that  the  cold 
has  come  he  is  snug  and  warm  in  his  hole,  several 
feet  under  the  snow.  So  that  now  all  the  snow 
that  is  piled  above  him  but  helps  to  keep  him 
warm,  and  the  cold  cannot  get  at  him.  He  will 
not  stir  abroad  until  the  warm  spring  days. 

The  squirrels  are  also  sleeping  in  their  nests 
in  the  hollow  trees,  or  in  the  hammocks  that 
they  have  hung  in  the  tree  tops. 

The  woodpeckers  and  the  owls  also  sleep 
away  most  of  the  time  for  if  one  is  sleeping  and 
not  stirring  about,  he  will  not  need  as  much  food 
as  though  active,  and  food  is  very  hard  to  find 
these  bitter  winter  days,  when  earth  is  covered 
with  snow,  so  the  wise  little  creatures  keep  quiet 
and  do  with  less  food.  You  will  often  see  where 
a  gray  squirrel  has  dug  down  under  the  snow 
to  find  nuts,  but  for  the  most  part  he  depends 
upon  his  winter  store,  which  will  be  sufficient 
if  he  has  been  a  provident  squirrel. 

But  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  wild  crea- 
tures that  sleep  in  the  winter  is  Bruin,  because 
his  sleep  is  the  longest. 


1 84  Nature's  Children 

In  the  warm  months  the  bear  family  live  upon 
roots,  berries,  and  many  kinds  of  vegetable  food. 
Occasionally  they  vary  this  diet  with  a  pig  or 
some  mutton,  but  for  the  better  part  of  the  year 
the  bear  is  a  vegetarian. 

When  the  snow  and  the  cold  weather  comes 
all  these  sources  of  food  are  gone,  so  the  bear 
has  nothing  to  do  but  to  hibernate. 

But  he  has  been  planning  for  this  all  the 
summer  and  autumn,  so  his  ribs  are  well  covered 
with  fat,  which  will  last  him  until  springtime. 

The  smallest  of  all  the  bear  family  is  the 
raccoon,  who  is  really  a  little  brother  to  the  bear. 
The  raccoon  has  a  long  ringed  tail,  which  is 
quite  different  from  the  tail  upon  a  real  bear, 
but  he  has  many  of  the  other  bear  characteristics. 

As  the  autumn  months  went  by,  the  raccoon 
was  fattening  himself  in  the  cornfield,  or  perhaps 
even  helping  himself  to  a  pumpkin,  scooping 
out  the  seeds  and  eating  them  with  a  keen  relish 
so  that  when  the  cold  comes,  he  is  well  fitted 
for  his  long  winter  sleep. 

The  black  bear,  who  is  the  smallest  of  the 
bear  family,  next  to  the  raccoon,  sometimes 


Nature's  Children  185 

sleeps  in  a  hollow  log  which  he  will  find  lying 
upon  the  ground,  but  he  more  often  makes 
himself  a  den  under  the  fallen  top  of  a  tree. 
Here  the  snow  will  drift  over  him  covering  him 
up  and  keeping  him  warm.  There  is  always  a 
small  hole  left  up  through  the  snow.  This  is 
kept  open  by  the  bear's  warm  breath,  which 
continually  melts  it. 

Here  in  the  warm  den  under  the  snow  the 
little  bears  are  born  while  their  mother  is  still 
half  asleep.  For  the  size  of  their  mother,  the 
little  bears  are  about  the  smallest  of  all  woodland 
babies.  It  is  not  until  they  are  three  or  four 
months  old  that  they  go  abroad  with  their  mother. 

When  the  old  bear  appears  in  the  early  spring 
she  is  sleek  and  fat. 

As  she  has  been  sleeping  all  the  time  she  has 
not  worn  off  her  flesh,  but  she  soon  gets  poor, 
and  her  coat  becomes  rusty. 

When  she  first  comes  forth  after  the  winter 
sleep,  she  does  not  eat  ravenously  of  meat,  for 
she  knows  that  if  she  did  it  would  make  her 
sick.  Instead  she  eats  buds  and  roots,  and 
does  not  break  her  fast  upon  meat  for  a  week 


1 86  Nature's  Children 

or  two.  Then  if  the  opportunity  offers  she 
will  visit  a  neighboring  pig  sty  and  come  away 
with  a  squealing  spring  pig. 

The  grizzly  bear,  who  is  three  or  four  times 
as  large  as  the  black  bear,  also  dens  up  in  the 
winter,  but  he  does  not  den  up  in  a  hollow  tree 
for  the  simple  reason  that  a  hollow  tree  would 
not  be  large  enough  to  hold  him.  Instead  he 
finds  a  cavern  in  the  rocks  and  curls  up  in  the 
darkest  corner.  If  he  cannot  find  a  cavern 
to  his  liking,  he  will  often  do  some  digging, 
to  fashion  it  as  he  wants  it. 

In  the  warmer  countries,  where  food  is  more 
plentiful  during  the  cold  months,  the  bears  do 
not  den  up  as  long  as  in  the  cold  country,  where 
they  sleep  nearly  half  of  the  year . 

The  frogs,  the  toads,  the  snakes,  the  lizards, 
and  a  myriad  other  crawling,  creeping  things, 
also  sleep  through  the  cold  winter  months. 

You  will  see  by  this  chapter  what  good  care 
Nature  takes  of  her  children.  When  they  need 
sleep  she  has  given  them  an  instinct  that  tells 
them  to  seek  it,  even  under  a  bed  of  snow. 


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